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Holes – Louis Sachar

The Overview:

Holes is a 1998 young adult mystery comedy written by Louis Sachar featuring Stanley Yelnats IV, a 14-year old, overweight boy with no friends and terrible luck. After being wrongfully accused of stealing a pair of famous baseball shoes, Stanley is sent to Camp Crystal Lake, a juvenile work camp where “bad boys go to dig a hole and be add good”. Throughout the story, there are flashbacks to Stanley’s great- great-grandfather, Elya Yelnats, supposedly the cause of the Yelnats’s family’s bad luck, and to the love story of Katherine Barlow and Sam the onion picker.

The Diction:

Holes is a book of a sixth to eighth grade reading level, and although it is written with a more mature voice, it more or less comes off as such. The diction that is used is that of an average sixth grader, and the content deals with both teen-aged themes, such as bullying and obesity, and adult themes, like poverty.

A Potential Turn-off:

The book does tend to jump around and across three story lines: Stanley’s arc, Elya’s arc, and Katherine’s arc. The three arcs eventually become one cohesive plot, but it takes quite a while. Now, for me, this was not especially a definite problem, so much as an irritation. For instance, while reading about Stanley, the story would jump back over fifty year to Elya’s story. Granted, none of the side-stories are boring, but it was a shock. I enjoyed Stanley’s arc the most, and thus, whenever the story arcs switched I found myself wishing I was back with Stanley.

Another small problem I had with the book is not the book’s fault. If the reader has seen the Disney adaptation of Holes, by the same name, it can become a little difficult separate the written word from the cinematic experience. This is because the movie is almost the book copied-pasted. Good for the movie, but bad for people who have some report to complete on the book and have previously seen the movie.

An Appealing Factor:

Stanley Yelnats is one of the best protagonists to ever come out of a young adult’s book. He is not the generic person who finds love with someone who would normally be out of his league. He is not a bombshell in appearance, and in fact, there isn’t even any indication that he is handsome at all. He is explicitly described as morbidly obese and very timid, due to past bullying encounters. On top of all of this, Stanley, and his entire father’s side of the family for that matter, have rotten luck. Therefore he get blamed for many things that aren’t his fault. Even better, Stanley works hard to improve his self-esteem, including dropping over 150 pounds with pure willpower. All of this makes Stanley a very relatable character to most teen ad he can easily gain sympathy and affection. Because he is such a three-dimensional character, the reader can easily slip into his skin and become him, become empathetic regarding his troubles, despise those who treat me unfair, love those he loves. I myself am very fond of Stanley and could see him as my younger brother.

My Rating:

I rate Holes nine of of ten stars. Find your nearest library. They should have it.

The Story of an Hour

“The Story of an Hour” is a short story written by Kate Chopin. It was first published as “The Dream of an Hour” in 1985. I was first introduced to this short story during sophomore year. It was recommended to me by my English teacher; however, I never found the time to read it. The title of this story is literal, referring to the exact time the events prolong (which I find to be very interesting). The length of the story is roughly 1000 words. Before reading, I decided to do some research on the author. In her early years, she was strongly pro-Confederate, mainly because of the loss of her brother in the Civil War, and she was also quite the rebel. Her work exemplified societal issues through her own interests, but she wasn’t renowned during her time. It wasn’t until the 20^th century that her work gained recognition.

This short story revolves around a woman who has a heart condition and her emotions during this hour. Immediately, the conflict is introduced; Mrs. Mallard has been informed of her husband’s death. Her sister and another character try to break the news in the gentlest way because of her medical condition. Her husband’s death isn’t the only tension. In a way, Chopin uses descriptions and moments that hint towards the disturbing emotion of the now widow. That is, she feels free that her husband has died. At first, the wife is overwhelmed with grief and locks herself in her bedroom. Then, she reveals that her husband wasn’t so great of a man through small, subtle details. Eventually, Mrs. Mallard begins repeating the phrase “Free! Body and soul free!” This made the story controversial during the time of the 1890s. Many people argue over if people were shocked because of a woman speaking her mind or a woman being liberated by the death of her husband. In my opinion, I think it’s both.

My favorite thing about this piece is the descriptions. Chopin uses sensory details to make the reader feel as if they were Mrs. Mallard. The sentence structure and order was smooth and very understandable. Words such as elixir, elusive, exalted, and importunities coincide with the setting, time, and tone. It also gave me the opportunity to learn because I didn’t know the meaning of a lot of words in the story, but that didn’t hinder me from enjoying the read. Overall, I find this story interesting because of its background and the author. In a time where women were supposedly created for certain purposes, this fiction piece challenged the ideas of the 1890s. It spoke of things women were never supposed to or expected to think or say aloud. I admire this story’s complicated internal conflict, adding depth and reason to the tone. The ending is the best part to me and was worth waiting for. I just really appreciate the way conflict is in the beginning, middle, and end. There isn’t a dull moment in this story.

If you want to know the ironic event that happens at the end, give the story a read here.

Quiet by Susan Cane Part I

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking is a factually powerful read. The book itself is split into four parts. In this review, I will talk about the part entitled, “The Extrovert Ideal”.

“Strangers’ eyes, keen and critical. Can you meet them- Confidently– without fear?” – Print Advertisement for Woodbury’s Soap, 1922

The section begins with a reflection on the creation of the ideal business man and the transition from a society based upon morals to a society based upon personality, or as historian Warren Susman put it a “Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality”. It is pressed into the readers mind from the beginning a tone of biased among an introvert studying a simple fascination of the extroverted “ideals” and natural to learned traits and behaviors.

Quoted from Cane herself “In a Culture of Character, the ideal self was serious, disciplined, and honorable. What counted was not so much the impression one made in public as how one behaved in private. The word personality didn’t exist in English until the eighteenth century, and the idea of ‘having a good personality’ was not widespread until the twentieth.”

It was about the industrialistic new society that was being created that moved the discipline man out of the spotlight to platform a man meant for selling the spotlight. The twentieth century brought on a less agricultural outlook and created today’s urban culture. The extroverted businessman was a key part played in this development, because along with the big production belts came a need for someone to sell those products to ordinary people who didn’t simply leave their house with the intention to buy. Thus the salesman was created. Since business circulates business the best people to be in business was not the people who knew laws and philosophy and the real antics of things, but rather the people who knew how to talk and sway into other peoples wants. They needed to be confident, loud, a natural improviser of charm, attractive, and an overall energetically open person. The need for these people to sell and exist was what created the American idealistic personality/person. Everyone wanted to be these people so that they could be something.

Since this bar in society was created, they noticed the difference in natural salesmen and their counterpart opposites. The closed door operators were the people who simply were not this, and so they were not this “something” everyone wanted to be. Introverts were not noticed out of praise, they were noticed to contrast the extroverted agenda society had created at the time. Ads like the one that Cane began the book with, and I quoted to begin my article were used to entice sell factor from the need to become this type.

Parents taught haughtiness and over activity to perfect these introverted limps in the child’s personality. This spiked the anxiety and insecurity in the average person, and continues to grow over time. Ads and TV shows portray larger than life men and beautified perfect women. No wonder the years that followed this transition created such a divide and objective to personify yourself as largely and widely as possible.

Crane does a wonderful job of telling the transition and the importance to stay in-tuned with your extroverted side as much as possible. She does not leave the underlying pieces of opposition out though, as she sees and details the difference and the utmost importance that both extroverts and introverts are necessity to keep the ball rolling.

I found this book, or rather, this book found me at a bookstore in Seaside, FL. I was staring at a book beside it when a man came up and pointed at it and told me, “I’m not an introvert, but my friends who’ve read it are telling me that it’s a great book. Just thought I’d let you know.” And I am a big believer in fate, so this book was mine the second that happened. I find it reflective, a real penny for your thoughts kind of book. Reflection to society and the society your grandparents grew up in and the similarities, showing the times aren’t that different after all. Maybe a bit more or less extreme in some places, but the cracks and barriers in preferable personalities is a common strong suit that plays a roll in both.

Watch Me Go by Mark Wisniewski Book Review

This book was based around horse racing, where people place bets on which horse was most likely to win the race. We see several characters in this book that take a turn at betting in some form, regardless of how that betting may take place. Deesh, who lives in Bronx, gets mixed up in a serious crime regarding a murder that he wasn’t really a part of.

This book was split off into two parts throughout. We start off with Deesh at first, who gets caught up in the murder from the start of the book which very quickly escalates as another murder takes place and then a suicide. All of these things make his fate against him because his guilt is increasing more and more throughout the book as no one believes he is innocent. On the other side of the story Jan, who is a horse Jock, sees herself falling in love with a man who is addicted to betting on horse races. This addiction raises more conflict after Jans’ big win when it seems that everything is going great for her and her lover, he disappears. This later tied in to the murder case for Deesh and we learn that the case could most likely be going better for Deesh because of the history of Jan’s family.

I found that the character’s in this story were really easy to compare myself to. I was able to relate most things that were happening to the characters to myself in some way. With Jan, her helplessness was relatable to myself and she seemed to always be longing for something- or someone. This longing was able to be seen throughout her half of the story through her own thoughts in her perspective. She seems childlike and she is very overwhelmed with the ways that people regard her as “too big” to Jock. She finds comfort in riding equis Mini, which is a horse that she races on in her first match. She feels closer to her father that is no longer a part of her life because he committed suicide when she was younger. She also finds comfort in running late at night, where she can’t see anything and is forced to face whatever is in the dark that she cannot see.

This book itself was written well. It was significantly formal, but not too formal that I wasn’t able to read it. The time period that he chose was accurately represented through the book when Deesh refers to people as “brothers” and “sisters” when he finds people the same skin color as himself. We also see much of the racism of the world in this time period when we see disrespect by other people just by acknowledgment of his skin color as a bad thing. Most of the words in this story really struck me as important and evoked emotion.

I find this book really helpful in understanding the time period, and have knowledge about horse races and betting as an addiction.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief Review

The book Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief is one of those books that most likely read in eighth grade or freshman year. I think one of the reasons it became so popular in schools is because it’s relatively new and it’s a very refreshing book. I have read this book around four or five times and every time I read it, I get another perspective on it, learn something new, or just have a good experience of a fresh breather. This book is such a good example of being a great book fro pretty much all ages. I enjoyed reading at a younger age, and I still enjoy reading it now.

The book is about a kid named Percy Jackson who is kind of like an outsider. He is a half-blood, a half mortal, half god. He gets chased down by monsters that kind of don’t like him and it kinda turns out to be inconvenient most of the time, like it would any time you’re on a school field trip and some teacher actually turns out to have bat wings and is trying to kill you. In literally the first chapter, we manage to get so much information, like his crippled teacher has a powerful sword inside of a fountain pen, Percy kind of has powers related to water, Percy is a half-blood. This book just jumps into this awesome world and manages to scoop up the reader and bring the reader on a crazy ride. I find myself being severely emotionally attached to many of the characters and I also managed to be at the edge of my seat several times during the book.

After the kid defeats a monster in a museum, he is then taken to a special camp for kids who are half-bloods. The camp is known as Camp Half-Blood. This camp allows Percy to learn who his dad is, since his mom is Sally Jackson. The camp also allows him to train in combat and enhance his skills. He then goes on to do a quest and that is basically where the book’s main plot kicks off.

I think this is an awesome book for young kids. I learned a lot about mythology because of this book, and I think that it can be beneficial for children to read it, and if anyone else knows nothing about mythology, they should read the book as well. The book is a well-written book that brings you on one adventure, but has so much put into it. You can always expect an encounter with a crazy monster attacking the kids, or some very interesting dialogue. The author does a really good job at introducing new characters and aspects of them at the perfect time. It brings up background details at the correct timing and it brings in so many different aspects of the same characters.

Some of the main characters include Grover Underwood, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Clarissa La Rue, Luke Castellan, Sally Jackson, Chiron, and Silena Beauregard. Every character has a very clever background and interesting plot.

The first book branched into a larger series, which is extremely understandable. Mythology is a very large concept and there was so much that wasn’t explained in the first book. The first book got many people into the characters that they just constantly wanted to learn more about the characters and the story in general.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden – A Book Review

Image result for memoirs of a geisha book

Memoirs of a Geisha follows the life of a Japanese girl, Chiyo, as she grows up in 1920s-onward Japan. Chiyo lives in a “tipsy” house Yoriodo and lives a very simple life. After her mother falls ill, and her father is too old to pay for the medicine on top of everything else, Chiyo’s father sells Chiyo to an okiya, where she is trained to become a geisha. Besides the unfairness of her life as it is, Sayuri must battle Hatsumomo, a cruel senior geisha who hates Sayuri from day one, and the greedy owners of the okiya, Mother and Auntie. Sayuri finds a mentor in senior geisha Mameha, and with her help, ventures a path in hopes of becoming the most successful geisha in Japan—and hopefully win the heart of Ken Iwamura, chairman of Japan’s most important electric company.

As a prelude to my review, I’d like to bring up aesthetics and morality, which we discussed in class earlier this year—basically, whether art and morality should be connected or separated. Autonomists believe they should be separated, aesthetic moralists believe they should be connected. I am an aesthetic moralist, which is important to bring up as I talk about this book.

While writing Memoirs, Golden interviewed renowned and retired geisha Mineko Iwasaki for background information on the life and customs of geisha. This led to two big problems—firstly, Golden had promised Iwasaki that she would remain anonymous, then published her as a source in the book. Because geisha have a traditional code of silence about their work, Iwasaki received a great deal of backlash, including death threats. Secondly, Golden took a few too many liberties when describing the work of geisha, namely that of mizuage and danna. Mizuage, according to Golden’s version of Japanese history, was the tradition of selling an apprentice geisha’s (maiko) virginity to the highest bidder. In Memoirs, this is treated as absolute tradition, while in reality, while bidding on a maiko’s virginity did happen, the maiko was never obligated to accept the offers, and rarely ever did. A geisha’s danna was a wealthy man served as the geisha’s patron, providing money for her expenses and such. Memoirs portrays a geisha and a danna’s relationship as a sexual one, the geisha sleeping with the danna in payment for his money—in reality, danna and geisha rarely have sexual relationships, and if they do, it is much more than ‘casual’ and is not seen as exchange for the danna’s money.

These portrayals of geisha customs have kind of contributed to the way they are seen today—aka, prostitutes. Curiously enough, in the book, there’s a part where Sayuri amusedly debunks the myth that geisha sell their bodies…in the same book where geisha sell their bodies.

In short, enjoying this book can be a little more difficult knowing the harm it does, and I argue that the book’s value gets degraded because of its presentation.

Regarding the story itself:

The first ¾ of the book is what I found to be the most capturing. Sayuri’s travel from being sold to the okiya, separated from her sister, tormented by Hatsumomo, and so forth keep great tension. I was genuinely interested on how Sayuri would do, if she would escape from the okiya, etc. It was easy to dislike Hatsumomo as much as I was supposed to. Golden has a knack for description, and I imagined everything perfectly. The little details that Golden gets right—kimono, dancing and shamisen training, even food—are told in vivid detail. The way he describes character is unique, as he almost always compares them to something else—the character Dr. Crab is named as such for the way he awkwardly bends his arms.

The characters in the book are also interesting. Mameha, Sayuri’s mentor, is kind and wise, while also being mysterious and a bit sketchy. Pumpkin, the other girl at Sayuri’s okiya, was appropriately saddening. Hatsumomo was despicable in the best way. I think Nobu was my favorite character, since I have a fondness for characters who are gruff and blunt but have their soft spots. However, as much as these characters are enjoyable, some of them could have gotten better spotlight, or better outcomes. Of particular note, Sayuri spends a great part of the novel pursuing Ken, who she always refers to as simply “the Chairman”, and we unfortunately do not get as much time with him as wanted. He’s kind for sure, but that’s as much as we can get, since Sayuri spends most of the book unable to get closer to him. Because the Chairman is seen so little, the idea that Sayuri would spend so much of her life chasing him is a bit hard to stomach.

Sayuri herself is a bit of a weak point. She’s…fine. Just fine. She doesn’t really stand out very much, the way she reacts to things do not really give a lot of characters, so on, so forth. She goes through some tough stuff, but never really grieves long about it. Things that she feels so strongly about one chapter, she never references again later. This has the unfortunate side effect of leaving some plot threads loose. Unlike The Lovely Bones, we aren’t meant to put ourselves in Sayuri’s shoes—she’s a character, not a stand-in, that we are supposed to follow. The most character she gets is in the final part of the book, which unfortunately I believe to be the book’s biggest detractor.

The last part of the book can’t be detailed without giving away pretty much everything to read the book for. In short, Sayuri makes some ill choices. It was hard to root for her reading through them, especially when she makes these choices for relatively petty goals. Most things that were built up throughout the whole book get anticlimactic and unfair ends. The final pages can be inspirational, as Sayuri, now old, looks back on her life and the things she’d overcome, but they also include revelations that further sour the book as a whole.

Memoirs has an attention-grabbing beginning and middle but unfortunately goes downhill in quality as it comes to its end. After having so much interest and faith in it at first, finishing the book left me disappointed. This, coupled with the controversies and harm the book has brought, leaves me with really mixed feelings and a reluctance to read it again.

The Lovely Bones Review

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold – A Book Review

(This book deals with some heavy stuff, so I’ll warn about it now.)

The Lovely Bones tells a story about the rape and murder of fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon—literally three sentences in—and the results about it in her family and community. Susie narrates the story from her personal heaven, but although the story is told from her point of view, she is not the main character. The book follows a sort of ‘cast ensemble’: Susie’s sister Lindsey, her father Jack, her mother Abigail, her younger brother Buckley, her first love Ray, her classmate Ruth, her murder’s investigator Len, and her neighbor-turned-killer Mr. Harvey. The book is not a murder mystery—you know within the first few pages that Mr. Harvey is the culprit—nor is it a thriller, or a horror story. It’s a bit hard to say exactly what genre the book is, but I would just say that it’s drama.

The story does not have a happy beginning, middle, or end. I doubt this is a spoiler, but Susie does not return from the dead for the sake of a happy ending. I even hesitate to say that the ending is going to satisfy everyone, or that it’s meant to. The book does not follow the usual book outline, either—it does not go from point A to point B, and it doesn’t have a big climax to it.

The book is about healing from the loss of a child/love/sister/friend. We see how each character goes through Susie’s murder, in healthy ways and unhealthy, through union and division. It has one or two supernatural elements to it, but otherwise, the story is about as rooted in reality as it gets. Because of this, and because the story is told through Susie’s eyes as she watches her family grieve her, it’s a very personal experience. I would argue that, because Susie herself does not enact much effect on the plot, and we don’t see very much of her personality, it’s almost like watching your family deal with your death.

That being said, Susie dealing with her own murder is also a-little-too-personal-in-a-relatable-way. Through her narration, Susie laments some of the things that we fear: being separated from family, dying at a young age, watching something horrible happen and not being able to help. The question that keeps Susie from reaching ‘wide, wide heaven’ is, I think, a question we all encounter when we lose a loved one: Why?

It’s the personal attachment, not a heart-racing plot, that kept me reading. Halfway through the book, I realized that there was not going to be a ‘happy’ ending to the plot, but it wasn’t the plot that I was concerned with. When I wasn’t relating to Susie and her struggle with ‘Why’, I was imagining myself in the places of the other characters. Lindsey deals with losing her older sister (I have an older sister myself) and being left in her shadow. Jack, like Susie, keeps fighting for an answer to ‘Why’ that can’t really come. Even Abigail, who I have found most readers dislike, has a relatable experience of trying to escape from an inescapable situation. Buckley is the smallest character, but while Lindsey is older and can deal with her and her parents’ grief, Buckley does not remember Susie quite as well (being so young) and is left to watch the people he loves fall apart. Sebold herself was a rape victim in college, so I’d argue that the story comes from a personal place, which is likely why it works so well.

Even scenes revolving around the absolutely despicable Mr. Harvey are interesting to watch—for me, it was because of the knowledge that people like Mr. Harvey do exist and have done the things he has done, and the book takes a gander on why they are the way that they are. But, much like Susie’s ‘Why’, there really isn’t an answer. We find out a bit of Mr. Harvey’s backstory, but it is never enough to excuse his actions, which is realistically unsatisfactory.

The book is probably the saddest that I’ve ever read, but it’s now one of my favorites. It’s odd, because my other favorite books are so different from this, but none of them have resonated with me so much. The book is also very well-written—it’s difficult to describe, but it captures the emotions of the characters and their observations without being too personal to that specific character. Like before, the writing makes it easy to replace Susie’s family with your own family, so even with just a bit of description, you can understand how they feel perfectly.

Even if I couldn’t relate to the characters, I’d still admire them. I believe my favorite character was Grandma Lynn. You don’t see her grieving nearly as much as the other family members, but you can tell Susie’s death has affected her, or at least made her realize how detached she is from her family and daughter. Buckley’s lack of grief also makes him a calm kind of mediator compared to the rest of his family—while they may be caught up in a moment, Buckley is there as a kind of outsider-looking-in and reacts more on sympathy than empathy. I will say this: there is a scene involving Buckley towards the end of the book that is probably one of the most satisfying things I’ve ever read.

However, I will not say that every part of the book is perfect. The dialogue is not always natural. It may sound cool or sweet, but once or twice I was taken out of the moment because I asked myself, “Who on earth would say that?” Because Susie is omnipresent throughout the book, the parts where she sees something good happening to her family and reacts with joy and excitement can be a bit off-putting.

I found the Ruth’s and Ray’s parts to be the most lackluster out of the cast’s. Ruth’s story was interesting enough—I don’t count it as much of a spoiler since it happens early, but basically, Susie’s soul “touches” Ruth as it goes to heaven. So Ruth’s story mainly revolves around trying to find out if ghosts are real, and what happened to Susie, if she was ‘the one.’ But Ruth herself does not have a very strong character. I could never describe her personality right. Ray’s story is about moving on from his high school sweetheart’s death, but I’m not going to lie, it got a little annoying at some point. Ray and Susie never really dated, they kissed once and barely spoke to one another—all when they were fourteen—but Ray and Susie both act like they were each other’s true love. It’s hard to believe Ray would still be hung up about it after such a long period of time.

I can’t give specifics, but there’s also a supernatural event that occurs with Ray near the ending, and it felt very unnecessary and awkward, and honestly a little creepy. It was probably the one part of the book I wanted to skip over.

But besides that, this is probably one of my favorite books now, albeit I think it’ll take a while before I pick it up again.

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson book review

Overview

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a girl tortured by an eating disorder and being the only one that could have stopped the death of her childhood best friend. It begins with the basics of a disordered thought process- calories over nutrition, the thoughts of anorexia. In the chapters that pass, you see the hurtles she goes through coping with her eating disorder. The way that this is control for her, she explains so much through her story from top to bottom with anorexia, and her best friend, who at recently died of bulimia in the story. It is pain meant to be read, and meant to be scoured through.

Diction

I found this book exponentially helpful in sweeping through all the point of views of a story centered around an eating disorder. Little details of input memory stories showed the pain enthralled family, the stressful doctors offices and appointments. For me, i read it with that purpose, to be able to gaze through a kaleidoscope of views and not only the sicknesses thoughts. People with that mindset need to see other peoples pain because they are so enthralled in control and number hypnotization. It distracts from everything- but this book brings the point of view back to a centerfold of perspective. That is what makes this story so memorable and well done for me.

Appeal Factor(s)

The writing and structure is beautiful. The imagery spiked my obsession with Laurie Halse Anderson- who never disappoints with that factor. A quote I will never forget it is:

Why? You want to know why?

Step into a tanning booth and fry yourself for two or three days. After your skin bubbles and peels off, roll in coarse salt, then pull on long underwear woven from spun glass and razor wire. Over that goes your regular clothes, as long as they are tight.

Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all, “a disappointment.” Puke and starve and cut and drink because you don’t want to feel any of this. Puke and starve and drink and cut because you need the anesthetic and it works. For a while. But then the anesthetic turns into poison and by then it’s too late because you are mainlining it now, straight into your soul. It is rotting you and you can’t stop.

Look in a mirror and find a ghost. Hear every heartbeat scream that everysinglething is wrong with you.

“Why?” is the wrong question.

Ask “Why not? “

If this is not appealing enough for you, then i do not know what would be. It is the most personal thing I’ve read that i never knew was so loud at one point in my life. It is a book like this, a book that scares you, that makes you learn. It’s like a metaphor to a lesson in life. Overall this book is one of the most personal things I could fear and love at the same time and i could not recommend a book more strongly.

Not-so-appealing Factor(s)

It may be too emotionally conflicting for you, in some parts the description becomes very graphic. Which is exactly what a topic like this needs, but some people would not appreciate out of the sheer discomfort of what they see through it. I, personally, am am very emotionally in touch person, and so i cried and laughed and related wherever needed in the book. There is a difference in just emotionally in touch and just out right discomfort- this is a disclaimer to those that may not like to read sad things, or things too vulnerable.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas- A Book Review

The Overview:

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a 2006 novel about a young German boy named Bruno growing up during the Holocaust by John Boyne. He faces difficult changes for a nine-year-old and when he makes a new friend, Shmuel, a boy on the other side of an electric fence, he doesn’t understand what is happening to him.

The Diction:

I found this book to be a very good read, but only to some. The way the book is written is very Junie B Jones-esque and written from Bruno’s perspective, but not his point of view. What I mean is, because the main protagonist is a child, although the book is not in first-person, it is written in a childlike way, using his diction as the story’s diction. For example, the new house that Bruno moves into is referred to as “Out-With”, because that is how Bruno hears his sister say it. It might fly over the head of some, like me, that the place is actually called Auschwitz. But the book reads “Out-With” because Bruno is mispronouncing it.

A Potential Turn-off:

Something that might not appeal to a potential reader is the fact that Bruno is a child, a German child growing up during the Holocaust at that; therefore, he will behave as such. He lies at times to get out of trouble, and he gets into petty disagreements with his sister. He can also be a little self-absorbed, and he can definitely be ignorant. These qualities might put the reader off if they are used to older protagonists and subconsciously compare Bruno to those protagonists. The conclusion might lead the reader to think badly of Bruno, because, yes, it’s true: an older main character with these traits could be considered a nuisance.

For me, though, I excuse Bruno from the category of “Nuisance” because of his young age. Simply put, he doesn’t know any better, and any child of his age would most likely behave the same. In my book, that makes him a more realistic character. Unlike so many other child characters, Bruno isn’t horribly misbehaved or unbelievably angelic; he is a good mix of the two. It’s really up to the reader to determine how to feel about Bruno’s character.

An Appealing Factor:

Something else interesting is the little insinuations that Bruno doesn’t understand but the reader might. At one point, a German officer makes an insulting joke about another officer, and Bruno can’t understand why his sister is laughing. Small things like this make the book a better read. Either way, the story takes place over a time period of at least a year, so naturally Bruno experiences character growth. He tries to be as truthful as possible and he becomes more considerate towards Shmuel, even going so far as to sneak him food. He learns to ignore his sister’s antics, and overall, grows the way a normal child would.

My Rating: Eight out of ten stars.

I thought this book was utterly charming, and I highly recommend it.

Do You Believe You Can Do Anything?

Overview:

The article “How to Believe You Can Do Anything” by Brian Kim acts as a motivational guide for reaching the peak of true belief in the goals you’ve set for yourself. Our mothers, fathers, and teachers tell us all the time that we just have to believe in ourselves in order to accomplish something, but they never tell us how. This is the exact issue the article addresses. It dives in with rudimentary quotes we’ve heard our entire lives and boldly asks the question ‘How do you believe?’ The article answers this question with seven in-depth steps. From stating what your specific goal is to surround yourself with people who want to attain the same goal, these steps conquer every aspect of truly believing and succeeding.

Diction:

Readers get to enjoy a step-by-step model without the boring rigidness of a How-to guide. I found this article very easy to read because it felt personal and freely structured. It wasn’t doused in fancy, ostentatious words or phrases. The tone was overall down-to-earth and enjoyable. It does contain some content that may be sensitive for readers like religion and profanity but nothing of the extreme. There are a lot of lines in bold that contain ideas being repeated throughout the article. The author uses repetition to attempt to drill the most important aspects of each step into the reader’s brain.

Potential Turn-off:

This article contains a lot of repetition, which didn’t deter me from reading. If you’re the type of reader who just loathes repetition, use caution in choosing to read this article. There’s also a metaphorical touch to this article. Self-belief is implicated a lot. That being said, if you don’t like or necessarily agree with the basic idea of believing is the key to success, you may have a hard time leveling with this piece because that belief is the floor plan of the article.

Appealing Aspects:

What I found most interesting about this article was the thorough explanations of each step. They all contained supporting evidence, factual and opinionated. I think that is what made the article feel more personal. The author chose to include his inputs on certain things, specifically stating how he feels about the subject. A great idea this article mentions is that our beliefs are not our own. They’ve been passed down through books, oral storytelling, or environment. However, the author provides a way to counteract that, which is specification of your goal—meaning getting down to the very core of it. This article also stirs a lot of questions in the readers—mainly reflective ones. Throughout the article, I found myself questioning my own process of achieving goals. The question ‘why?’ resonated with me the most. If anything makes me question myself, I consider it a good read.

So, that leaves me to ask. What is your main goal you’re struggling to achieve? Do you wholeheartedly believe you can achieve it? If you hesitated to answer either of those questions, give “How to Believe You Can Do Anything” a read. I bet you’ll be able to answer those questions afterwards. If you would like to read the article, click here.