so he res a list of some books that i want to read in the future.
Divergent
Room
Unwind
Looking for Alaska
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
The Way of All Fish
The Tiger Shrimp Tango
The Wife, The Maid, and The Mistress
Fake ID
Tell the Wolves I'm Home
In a Glass Grimmly
The Dinner
See Jane Run
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
But I think the next book I am going to read will be either Looking for Alaska or Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Book 3 review: Final Exam
The Mortal Instruments series
This book is written in third person, making it easy to see everyone’s point of view, and what is happening at every time. Once you miss something from one person’s point of view, the next chapter goes back a little and shows how that person thinks about all that just happened. Because this book is in third person, it makes it easy to read and follow along with, because you get so many views and you know what is going on, even when the other characters do not really know what is going on. This book being in third person makes it easy and fun to read.
Some of the seemingly harmless people in New York City are actually demons. But demons aren’t real, right? Wrong. Well that’s not the case for Clary; she lived her whole life believing in nothing but what we think, there are no aliens, werewolves, vampires, dragons and so on. But in The Mortal Instruments, by Cassandra Clare, all of those fairytales you were told as a child are true, to some extent of course. This book may be able to be considered realistic fiction, but the story is all over the place, ranging from fantasy to magic realism. It just depends the way you look at the book. It could be considered fantasy because the book makes up a completely new country, Iris. Now this may not seem completely out of the ordinary, but it is. In Iris, there are many clans of werewolves, vampires, fairies, and so on. They call these downworlders, or in simpler terms half humans who were infected with demonic poison to become what they are. In the very begining of the book, when Clary first enters the world of shawdowhunters, jace and his friends were killing a downworlder. "Thats not a person, little girl. It may look like a person and talk like a person and maybe even bleeed like a person. Buts its a monster." (Clare 13) that is how Jace explained the down worlder to Clary for the first time. As you can see they look down on the 'monsters' they encounter.
The plot for the book is very well set, it follows the general outline for magic realism, the main character, typically a girl, discovers something about herself that she did not know, typically she has powers that come from another world not her own, she falls in love with a boy, there will be some complication to their relationship, the girl ends up having to save the world she did not know about previously. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with this; this is usually just the general outline for magic realism. Each individual book has its own way of interrupting this outline, but in general, they all stick to this plot, with a few twists. Any way you look at it, The Mortal Instruments follows this pattern.
Though this book isn’t a sappy love story, it will have you routing for Clary and Jace to work out. The book picks you ups and sucks you in like a vacuum cleaner, only to get out when it gets emptied at the end. The fact that Clary and Jace like each other so much, is so out of the world crazy because they met each other all of five days before something happen between them. That is another thing I find crazy in these stories with love, they take like five days and imply love at first sight. Things happen too fast, not with just the romance, but everything in the book. When one thing happens too fast in the book, everything else gets jealous and starts moving just as fast to keep up. This can make things confusing at some times, but reread it and it should come out clear soon after. Things move too fast in this genre, it needs to slow down and grab a break, or it will get tired too soon.
The way Cassandra made Jace act is really thought out. He’s one of those people who know he has a pretty face, and he uses that. She made him very full of himself, very cocky. Now does he really have the right to be so full of himself? He does. ", Jace still in his bloody shirt with the knife in his hand. He grinned at her and dropped a half-apologetic, half-mocking shrug." 9clare 16) He has a pretty face, or so the text explained, and he uses it to an advantage in more than one case, like in the Seelie court, talking to the queen. He used his face and wittiness to get out of a very bad situation. Cassandra really thought out how Jace was, on a very deep level. He has the face, the attitude, and the act to be a modern day annoying rich kid. Not that there is anything wrong with that, she just made him very relatable on a deep level. It confused me at times, because it’s easy to hate Jace for his cockiness, but it’s also easy to empathize with him for all he has gone through.
This book is written in third person, making it easy to see everyone’s point of view, and what is happening at every time. Once you miss something from one person’s point of view, the next chapter goes back a little and shows how that person thinks about all that just happened. Because this book is in third person, it makes it easy to read and follow along with, because you get so many views and you know what is going on, even when the other characters do not really know what is going on. This book being in third person makes it easy and fun to read.
In conclusion, The Moral Instruments would receive an A+ in my mind. This book was a fun and interesting read, I highly recommend it.
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
My own adventure Post 9
In the first book that i read, The city of Bones by Cassendra Clare, something intresting that i observed was that she had humans labeled so prententiously. She had the shadow hunters think so lowly of the humans, that they are of no worth. the same thing comes along with my second book, the Alchemist. I seem to have found that many fiction books now a days choose to make up a completly new race, that follow somewhat true theories in the real world. And in all of those books, the humans are either at the bottom or really really close to the bottom, there has not been one book that i have read, that follows this idea, that has the humans at the top. There is always someone or something that is better than the humans in some way or another. I think it is a good idea, because more times than not, there is a human to come into the world and help save whoeveror whatever, and then they gain respect. Now dont get me wrong here, I like that. Most of the books that I read follow that pattern. But they are different because each story has a different plot, they just follow the same ideas. Whether they follow ancient ideas or make up some compleltly on thier own, is the authors choice. I find both of the intresting but when I do read one that follow ancient ways, that of course have true beliefs or ideas behin them, are intresting. I like those because often times i learn things from those books. But then I also like the idea of making up something completly impossible. If they do make something up it challenges me to make me think about stuff. Like Wow? Could this actually happen? You never reakky know. Thats what fnd so intresting about this idea authors have with the human race not knowing about another older race. I also think reading fiction books help me challenge myself to become more open minded. Thats ok if you are a person that likes to live on facts, but i think that the wonder in the thruth is the most fun. You never really know if something that you read in a fiction books is true, thats why i like them so much. They help to take me to another place where unicorns and flying dolphins can happen.
truth in memoir
in order for a book to be non-fiction, I feel as though the entire thing should portray the truth. Because if you have a book labeled non-fiction, and in that book it says sally went down to the store to buy a chainsaw,when in relaity she only went there to buy cake, that is complete streching of the truth. So in my mind, for a book to be labeled non-fiction, the entire book must be true. I feel as though if authors bend the truth slightly, they are still lying to us. For insietence if you read a book about Ab Lincoln and its in the non-fiction section, then the books says that Abe actually never got shot in Forbs theater, you could go around beliving he was shot elsewhere. even slight variations change a whole lot of things that could change your mind set on something. I think it would help if we draw a line between fiction and non-fiction, but only because personally I do not care for non-fiction topics, because I dont care for peoples boring lives. I find it intresting that someone can sit down and write about everything that has ever happened to them, when the most exciting thing is that when they were making toast and it popped out to scare them. I think this is important because if you label a book incorrecttly then people will read it, and belive it. So by that i mean if you strech the truth in a non-fiction book, then they assume that its true because it is labeled as non-fiction.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Post #6 Readicide
I do think Readicide is a problem in schools because personally
having to sit through a lecture on why the writing wanted the curtains and
walls a certain color in the room to create a feeling. The author just wanted
the color to be that color, and by the actions of the character you can guess
pretty close as to what the mood is. But if the teachers over teach the book it
makes you not want to read the classics. Sitting in my honors English class the
first trimester of school was dreadful because all the teacher did was ask what
everything means and we over analyzed EVERYTHING. The fact that I really do not
care for Romeo and Juliet anymore should say something; that is how much we
went over it. I don’t feel that genre fiction is less worthy because no matter
what we read it will in some way or another expand our mind and help us in our
everyday life. Whether that is how to kill a dragon or what to do when you are
a star crossed lover of two families that hate each other. We always take at
least one thing away from everything book we read. More times than not, I take
away almost everything you could from a book. I think that we still do need to
teach the literary fiction because those are the classics, and you make references
to them in everyday life without even noticing it almost. Song writers put them
into their songs, take Taylor Swift for example. In her song Love Story she made the whole song around Romeo and Juliet, anybody
can see that, as she said the names, but if we stop teaching the books, then
nobody will know the true meaning behind the reference in the song, it will
just be weird lyrics that “make sense”. I think that we should add more genre
fiction into the curriculum, but not too much that it over powers the classics,
there needs to be a fine balance between the two. I don’t think that we should
swap the classics with modern day popular books, even if some day they might
have a chance of becoming the classic. I think that preserving what has been
taught for so long is good, but the teachers are suffocating the fun in what
the book really means. They have a set
plan and tests for the book, but you might think something entirely different
of the book, but the teachers won’t care because that is what they are supposed
to teach you, so what does it matter to them if you think differently? Most teachers,
in my experience, only think what they have to teach is correct. I remember
wanting to tell my teacher something about Romeo and Juliet and when I finally did,
she laughed it off because it was not in the curriculum. I think that we should
be able to read with a certain variety, that does not suffocate us with the
ideas of others and then we be able to take what we want from the book and
apply it to our own lives. That being said I think that a modern day book list
should consist of different amounts of classics and present day popular books. As
I said before, we can take things away from books, anything that we want, but
then change it to apply to modern day life. So if we do keep literary fiction,
and I think we should, students can apply whatever we want to their own lives,
without the ideas, that may not be wrong, to modern day life. Kids need to read books so
that they don’t have to stare at a TV screen for two hours to know that Marley
dies at the end. Kids should read the books to find that out. The books allow
you to create your own version of everything. And people may differ you’re
idea, but it’s yours and only yours. There is no one that can take the idea
away from you no matter how hard they might try. The fact of the matter is that
books allow us you reach into our mind and see the vivid details that the
author writes. The movies give you a representation of what others think, they
put that view into your mind and then you will never truly know what you think
everything looks like. I think we need to read books to let our mind run free
with imagination.
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