Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Completion Date: 7/10/2009
Rating: <3
Number of Pages: 165

My Most Memorable Quote: This book was chalk full of awesome sauce quotes. This one is just kind of explaining the government's reasoning and frame of mind.

"If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides of a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, topheavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than people worry over it."

Fahrenheit 451 is rather 1984-esque. Society has made people thoughtless and narrow minded. This America is filled with lawlessness. Everything is set up for the very purpose of entertainment. Don't worry, be happy. Forget war, forget knowledge, forget anything that causes you to worry, be bored, or to think.

Montag, the protagonist, is a fireman. Not one that puts out fires, but one who starts them. His job is to burn books. Anyone caught reading or possessing books is, at the minimum, confined to a mental hospital while the books are burned by the firemen. He's always enjoyed this job, but one day he meets a girl who gets him thinking about things in a new light. Clarisse McClellen makes him start asking why. Why does he burn these books? What could be in them that is worth burning? Eventually this causes him to rebel, get caught, and go on the run.

Honestly, I found this a lot easier to grasp and understand and compare than 1894. Is it because I'm pretty much disgusted at the thought of books being burned, so I payed closer attention? Possibly. But, really, I found it very easy to compare to today's society. The main comparison is that people really are looking for the greatest convenience.

It's that kind of mind frame to which people are really subjecting themselves these days. Why should I read the DaVinci Code if I can just see the movie? BECAUSE IT MAKES YOUR BRAIN WORK. DUH. Oh my land, my computer is so slow, maybe I should upgrade so that I can get to different facebook pages quicker! GO OUTSIDE AND LIVE, YOU PANSIE! Oh, why should I care about politics? BECAUSE IT'S YOUR COUNTRY, YOUR TAXES, YOUR FUTURE. BE AWARE OF IT.

I feel like my generation is underestimating the importance of learning and thinking! People spend way more time watching Spongebob than reading books. People don't need to write letters anymore, they have e-mail. There's no need for face to face communication, we have texting. What is it that the smartest, most talented people are trying to develop these days? More convenience. Trying to make things easier and more "fun." But how can you learn the same amount when you're working so much less?

I think this book really depicts this problem very well. Ray Bradbury writes very clearly and eloquently, and though it went over my head once or twice, I feel like I got some good things out of it, and people really need to read this book. It's fantastic. :)

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Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom

Completion Date: 6/18/2009
Rating: <3
Number of Pages: 192

My Most Memorable Quote: This one was pretty difficult because there was a lot to learn in the book. I chose this one just because I felt like it. It just kind of shows how he looked at death and all that stuff.

"--he would not wither. He would not be ashamed of dying. Instead, he would make death his final project, the centerpoint of his days. 'Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what ahppens to me. Learn with me.' "

Tuesdays with Morrie...such a good book. So very sad, but another one of those books that you learn from. The moral of the story is, basically, that we just need to pay more attention to the important things in life; like family, and love, and just being positive and stuff.

When you read about this man whose days are running thin, who is completely dependant upon other people and can't do anything for himself, you wonder how he could not be racked with self-pity. I'm pretty sure I would be. I would pretty much pity myself all the time. I'd be embarrassed by the things people would have to do for me. He, on the other hand, was just always positive. It's absolutely amazing.

This book was very close to making me cry. It is so sad. You become attached to Morrie throughout the book, and as you read about his withering body, you feel some pain. At least, I did. But honestly, it's spectacular. I could read this book a million times over. If you haven't read this book, I'm sorry, but you have to.

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The Prophet by Khalil Gibran

Completion Date: 6/11/2009
Rating: *
Number of Pages: 96

My Most Memorable Quote: This one was a toughie; There are just so many amazing quotes in this book! I almost want to do them all but . . . that would be a lot. So! I'm just going to do two. The first of which just kind of hit me because I just moved and I've found it to be true.

"Ever has it been that love knows not it's own depth until the hour of separation."

The second is when the Prophet was asked about joy and sorrow, and he goes on to explain that they are interwoven; You can not have joy without sorrow. I loved this quote, I thought it was just so cool and explains joy and sorrow really well, and kind of turns sorrow into a more positive thing.

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."

Well, I love The Prophet in a different way than how I love Pride and Prejudice; There are so many lessons you learn from it. It's absolutely incredible. While Pride and Prejudice just gives me warm fuzzies because I love Mr. Darcy, The Prophet just leaves me in awe of all the things I can learn from it. This book explains emotions such as love, joy, pain, and sorrow; but it also explains things like beauty, buying, houses, clothing . . .. Somehow or another, he always finds a way to bring it back to religion and God, or applying it to your own goodness, and it's amazing! I mean, really, I was encaptured in the words I was reading; Trying my best to apply it to myself and to learn from it. I really liked, at the end, when he says,

"Less than a promise have I given, and yet more generous have you been to me.
You have given me my deeper thirsting after life.
Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain.
And in this lies my honour and my reward, --
That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty; And it drinks me while I drink it."

It's crazy, I know. I still have to read it a million times to even get any understanding out of it. I mean, that really is a gift and I don't think anyone really thinks about that. That metaphor right there goes pretty far over my head, and every time I think about it, I get different meanings from it, but I think that's what's so great about it.

Well, this was just an intense book. I'll definitely have to read it again when I'm older and have more of an understanding of life and things like that, but I really learned a lot from it right now. I would suggest it to most people. :)

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Completion Date: 6/9/2009
Rating: <3
Number of Pages: 367

My Most Memorable Quote (New to the blog!): Yeah, that's right, I'm going with the famous first line. It's just completely epic and very possibly the greatest first line in the whole wide world. It just immediately takes you into the story and tells you what's up. So here it is, My Most Memorable Quote of Pride and Prejudice:

"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."

If you know me, you know that I love this book with a passion. I am such a girl, I know, but it's just amazing! The book is extremely well written, Jane Austen is a genius. You know, I can't help but love the story. It's so romantic, and as much as I like to pretend that I'm a tough, awesome sauce baller, I am also a hopeless romantic. The story just flows beautifully. The characters are just so well developed; you feel for all of them. You feel their embarassment, you feel their pain, you feel their joy . . . SO GOOD.

Well, the story is just incredible. Elizabeth is strong, independent, witty, and just awesome sauce. Mr. Darcy is so proud, but just so incredibly amazing! Their relationship is developed so well, I just love it. My heart melts every time I read that ending . . . .

Well, it's just an amazing book. Many people think that this book is just for girls, but I would respect anyone for reading Pride and Prejudice. It's a wonderful book!


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Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Completion Date: 5/26/2009
Rating: *
Number of Pages: 519

I'm not really in the mood to write an especially long or deep review about this book. Sorry. I mean, I definitely could say some stuff in this review, but I'm really not into it.

So! Basically this book is extremely different from the musical. Not especially happy. I mean, it was a good book. It may have gone a tad over my head at points, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It really puts the whole Wizard of Oz thing in a whole new light. It shows that, though Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West) was wicked, her intentions weren't such. She had her beliefs, she just carried them out in a more...rude...way. Another thing I liked about this book was that it confronts the nature of evil and good vs. evil a lot, and it's really iteresting to read. It makes your brain work extra hard.

There are some things that I certainly did not like very much in this book. Sex and language were the main things. The Turtle Heart/Melena affair, a few F bombs, Fiyero and Elphaba's affair, were a few of the...risque things that occurred. The thing that I really didn't appreciate very much was describing the night at the Philosophy club in such detail. Very little was gained from that. I suppose that it was just to explain what happened to Tibbit, but Gregory Maguire certainly gave me a little too much information, in my opinion. I can see how Fiyero and Elphaba's affair was necissary to the story, and I didn't mind that too terribly much, but describing human/Animal sex did not make me happy. I'm just warning people that this is not an innocent book in the slightest. Just beware before venturing into the book.

You know, I mostly really liked the book. It's very well written, and it shows that even the Wicked Witch of the West has a soul (even if she, herself, doesn't think she does). All she wanted is forgiveness. It teaches an excellent lesson, and it really is very entertaining. I will admit that this book is certainly not for everyone, so just proceed with caution. :D

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A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah

Completion Date: 3/26/2009
Rating: *
Number of Pages: 240

So...I've decided that perhaps I've been going into a little bit too much detail on these book things. What I mean by that is that I give you pretty much the entire plot of the book. Mostly. Shouldn't I be letting you find out for yourself? I mean...if it's a good book, I wouldn't want people ruining the plot for me. Anyway, I'll probably just go into a little less detail for you.

A Long Way Gone is a true story. It's a memoir...duh. It's even in the title. Anyway! It's a very sad story about a boy who is running from the Revolutionary Union Front (RUF or rebels) in the country Sierra Leone. He is eventually put into the army to fight these rebels. His experience there is absolutely brutal and takes away his humanity, really.

He is in the army for a while before he gets taken out and put into a rehabilitation program. He finds family and eventually goes to New York City to live. There's a lot more to the story, and it's really fascinating to see how this boy learned to be a boy again, rather than just a soldier. Yes, it's very sad at some moments and rather gruesome at others, it's a very good book and is highly recommended by me. :)

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A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Completion Date: 3/16/2009
Rating: <3
Number of Pages: 204

A Separate Peace by John Knowles is really an incredible book. It takes place in the early 1940's at Devon, a boarding school in New Hampshire. World War II is raging on and this book shows how the seniors at Devon see the war and deciding whether to enlist.

The main characters in this story are Gene Forrester, the narrator, and Phineas, or Finny, Gene's best friend. Their personalities really aren't especially similar, Finny being more athletic and carefree as opposed to Gene who takes life more seriously and is an extremely good student. But they are best friends. The story also follows a few other characters, though not as heavily, the main ones being Brinker Hadley and Elwin "Leper" Lepellier. An accident occurs that incapacitates Finny, and this book follows how Gene and Finny lived through the summer and fall sessions at Devon and how they mature in who they are and in their take on the war.

I refuse to spoil the plot of such a magnificant book because people should really just read it. I was captured into the story from the beginning. A Separate Peace is not only extremely entertaining to read, but it also contains in it's pages many important lessons you can learn. I probably could've just read the whole book in a night if it weren't for facebook (yes, that is my weakness). If you have not read this book, read it. I doubt you will be disappointed.

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1984 by George Orwell

Completion Date: 3/4/09
Rating: *
Number of Pages: 267

I have to admit to you, this book went slightly over my head. This is a rather heavy book, I must say. This book is extremely difficult to explain or to give the basic plot of due to the complexity of the story. It is basically set in a time where all is controlled by "The Party", including thought, action, etc. Everyone thinks, acts, and works for the Party and Big Brother.

"Ministry of Truth bureaucrat Winston Smith is the protagonist; although unitary, the story is three-fold. The first describes the world of 1984 as he perceives it; the second is his illicit romance with Julia and his intellectual rebellion against the Party; the third is his capture and imprisonment, interrogation, torture, and re-education in the Ministry of Love." -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_book#Plot (I'm sorry, I just couldn't phrase it much better).

In terms of the book itself, 1984 was extremely well written and very interesting. It used a very wide vocabulary, it went into great detail, this book was just very well put together. But what made this book so . . . interesting and incredible was the way it could be applied to life today. Of course it's shown at a magnified scale, but some things in that book could be slightly frightening.

Some parallels were rather obvious and caught my attention immediately. One was at the beginning of the book when Winston goes to the movies. The movie that he sees shows many brutal killings, of a lifeboat full of children who get blown up, of a man fighting to stay alive and being shot down. Meanwhile, the people in the theater are applauding and laughing and yelling in encouragement.

Now think of movies today. People spend, oh, $9.50 to see movies just like that. What are the "Saw" movies all about, really? It just shows a bunch of people getting brutally murdered in different ways. No, most people don't shout and laugh at those movies, but there's a sick sort of enjoyment that people see in it that compels them to spend x amount of dollars to see it.

Other things, not so obvious, were the Party's slogans. War is Peace. Slavery is Freedom. Ignorance is Strength. Also things like "newspeak", "doublethink", etc. I find that newspeak can definitely be applied to the world today. Our vocabularies are steadily becoming more narrow, despite the copious amounts of words available to us. We look for what is simplest, therefore lessening our ability to think. (it's a good thing I read all the time...my brain capacity is growing rather than shrinking! whoo!) Think of texting and its effect on young minds, using acronyms that soon enter their day to day speech. Omg, lol, ttyl, brb, all of these I've heard used by peers in actual conversation at some point or another. I'm sure there are others, but I can't think of them right now. This simplifying of the human language, and therefore human thought, was the main objective of the Party. If they could control thought and speech, they could control humans and their world.

This may not be making any sense. I'm probably totally off on lots of things, but there are a lot more connections that I could make from this book to life today. This is what really made this book worth reading. You just go through and as you read, connections are made in your head and you're just in awe by the end of it.

This is in no means a happy book, but it IS a good book. I would suggest it to anyone.

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Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

Completion Date: 1/22/09
Rating: O
Number of Pages: 754

Breaking Dawn is the fourth novel in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. It is divided into three "books", or sections, all but Book 2 are told from Bella's perspective, the second being told from the point of view of Jacob Black. In this book, Bella gives birth to a half-vampire-half-human hybrid (silly). Jacob "imprints" on the baby, Renesmee. Turning a child into a vampire is strictly forbidden by the Volturi, so they come after the Cullens to get rid of the vampire child. Little did they know that Renesmee wasn't bitten, she was conceived the normal way. I think you all know what way I'm talking about, and if you don't I will not be explaining it to you. The rest of the story is just the Volturi coming to kill the Cullens and the Cullens attempts to stop them.

I do not understand why this series is so popular. I found the story kind of . . . dumb. Not to be rude or anything, but I just found it rather pointless. I found it mildly entertaining and it was fairly well written, but I feel that this book, not to mention the rest of the Twilight series, is more of a guilty pleasure than anything else.

The story just didn't do anything for me. Though the concept of the book could be interesting, I don't feel it was portrayed well. The characters also never did much for me. Bella always seemed kind of annoying to me. She was just so clingy and dependant on Edward, it just seemed kind of silly. I've never known that to be the way people really are. On the other hand, if you're looking for reality you don't want to look at a book about vampires and humans in love. Then you have Edward who is just so perfect it's kind of ridiculous.

I found Renesmee (what the junk? Renesmee?) and Jacob's relationship really weird. When I found out that he imprinted on her I rolled my eyes, I really did. The worst part of the entire book was when Edward called Jacob "my son". That was really insane.

Another thing that I will only touch on briefly is the *ahem* love life between Bella and Edward. Are you serious? I found that kind of unnecessary. I mean, I'm a 14-year-old Mormon who, whenever she hears the word "sex", blushes and starts giggling uncontrollably, but I still didn't see what that added to the story.

The whole thing wasn't all that bad. I found it kind of interesting and exciting at some points. I like a few of the characters; Alice, because she's just all cute and stuff; Emmett, because I thought he was just funny; Aro, because I just thought he had a smooth exterior that almost makes you like him even though he's the villain. I found the Volturi to be an interesting part of the story that kind of touches on politics and the fear involved there.

When it gets right down to it though, this book was . . . meh.

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