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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The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Completion date: 6/17/08
Rating: <3
Number of pages: 241

The Road follows a father struggling to keep his young son alive as they try to make it to the South in what seems to be post-apocalyptic conditions, having only a shopping cart for supplies. They face many struggles along the way. They are forced to improvise masks in order to prevent breathing in the ash that practically makes up the atmosphere. The only humans that are left are cannibals, their 'food-source', and refugee scavengers looking for food. There is no sunshine, no plants, no animals, no food. The father coughs blood every morning and is aware of the fact that he is dying. He struggles to protect his son from attack, exposure, and starvation. In the end, all they have is each other.

The Road was a book that I had trouble putting down. The depth of the characters and the story was incredible. Both the boy and his father had many layers that you continued to see throughout the book. For instance, the boy's attitude and initial disposition makes him out to be well beyond his ten years, however once you actually scrape the surface of the boy's character, you see that he's just a scared little kid trying to be brave for his dad. Throughout almost the entire book, I just wanted to give the boy a hug.

This book had many themes and I got a lot out of it. You definitely saw courage, endurance, and fortitude. Through all that these men went through, they still worked to keep faith alive. Some nights it felt like it wasn't worth it, but they didn't give up. They met adversity straight on we need to adopt that same attitude.

There were some things about the book that were not my favorite. I didn't like Cormac McCarthy's rough writing style. In that, I mean that he didn't use quotation marks, he often left out some punctuation, etc. The story itself didn't leave for much complaint. I'm sure that when I read it again, I may be able to find it's flaws, but why look?

I just think that this book showed the struggles of the little family beautifully. You feel for these fictional characters. When they feel scared, you feel scared. When they feel hope, you feel hope, etc. etc. etc.

This is probably one of the best books I've ever read. McCarthy certainly did an excellent job. You may not feel the same way, you may think it's absolutely horrible in every way, but as for me, I could read it over and over again.

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(woo hoo! First review!)