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Great Women in Books

In honor of International Women’s Day, which was yesterday, March 8th, I’ve decide to highlight some of the great women characters in books.

Hermione Granger: The Harry Potter series

Hermione is a brilliant, super-smart friend of Harry Potter in the widely successful book series. She used her intelligence to get out of multiple tough situations, not only saving her friends, but the Wizarding World as a whole.

Katniss Everdeen: The Hunger Games series

Katniss Everdeen saves her little sister’s life by volunteering to enter the Hunger Games in Prim’s place. She shows determination, leadership skills and perseverance to get through multiple Hunger Games throughout the series and lead and inspire a rebellion against her corrupt government. Her storyline inspired many copies and similar stories about strong girls in a dystopian society.

Tris Prior: The Divergent series

One of the very first and probably most successful Katniss Everdeen knockoff, Tris and the world she lives in is a compelling story on it’s own. Tris is a young woman just trying to figure out who she is in a world where that is frowned upon. Like her predecessor, Tris helps to overthrow and inspire a rebellion against her corrupt government.

Scout Finch: To Kill a Mockingbird

Scout is an inquisitive, kind, tomboy who grows up in a world of racial tension that she is unaware of. When her father defends a African American man in court however, Scout is thrown into reality and discovers many things about race and the way that people treat each other.

Clary Fray: The Mortal Instruments Series 

Clary is a creative teenager with a normal life ahead of her—except when she learns that she’s actually living in a world of monsters, and she is born into a family of Shadowhunters—the ones who kill them. Clary develops from a innocent and normal teen to a fierce warrior, who also saves the world.

What female characters in books are your favorite?

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The Fun of Re-Reading a Book!

 

Recently, I have began to read Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard, a book that I read about two years ago, and it reminds of the fun of reading a book you have already read again!

Of course, you can’t just read any book over again, it usually has to be compelling in the first place. Additionally, for me, it’s hard to read again if the book delves into deep and poignant topics, because usually the book gets it’s message across perfectly the first time around. Fantasy and Sci-Fi novels that are more of a fun ride book to re-read that won’t depress you in the process.

It is enjoyable to get reintroduced to the deep world-building established in certain books. Also, books with plot twist are another enjoyable read because it’s fun to track down the little hints the author sprinkled throughout the book that hinted to the plot twist.

The first book in a beloved series is also a great re-read, because it’s so interesting to see how the stories the character has gone through changed said character by comparing the character’s personality in the first book to the last book. It’s like watching the first season of your favorite TV show so you can remember how it all began.

For example, I have re-read the whole Harry Potter series several times and each time it’s a different experience because I am able to spot the little plot twist hints and catch details that I had missed in the past. Harry Potter himself and the supporting characters around him also greatly change and it’s fascinating to see how they have done so.

In conclusion, If you don’t have a book waiting to be read on your shelf, re-read one of your former favorites. It’s absorbing to see how the characters have changed, how the plot twists were foreshadowed, how many details you missed in your first read, and how time has changed YOUR perspective about the events going on in the book.

So, if you have some time on your hands, re-read a book that you read a while ago and see how it goes. You’ll probably like it!

What’s your favorite book to re-read?

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The Hate U Give Review

The Hate U Give is a young adult realistic fiction by Angie Thomas. This book is insanely successful as Thomas’ first novel, as it opened at number one on the New York Times young adult bestselling list.

It tackles the relevant issues of police brutality and racism through the eyes of Starr Carter, a 16-year old high school student, who goes to a high-end, mostly white school outside of the dangerous area that she lives in. Starr witnesses her childhood best friend get shot and killed right in font of her eyes by a policeman. She knows that he was innocent and that the police killed him for no reason other than that they were prejudiced against him. As the story gains national attention, Starr is the differing opinions of the two worlds that she lives in: her mostly-black home and her mostly-white peers at school. She is also faced with the question: Should she stay under the radar and be safe or stand up for her friend and face danger?

Pros:

This book tackled the issues, in my opinion, beautifully. As someone who does not live in the same situation that Starr lives in, it was eye-opening and important.

The characters that were supposed to likable were likable and the characters that you were supposed to disliked you disliked, so I thought that the characterization was great.

SPOILER: For example, Starr’s racist white friend gets what she got when she refused to have an open mind and change her obviously flawed logic. While Starr’s white boyfriend, Christopher, realized the two world that Starr lived in and supported her when she stood up to the police.

I also liked how the book branched out into other things beyond the core themes, like drugs and gangs, and how they impact the people who live near them.

The presence of family was another important facet of the book, showing that families aren’t just parents and their children, but whole communities and half-siblings and friends.

SPOILER: My favorite part of the book was when Starr took a stand and delivered a quick speech at the protest for her friend that was killed, Khalil. It gave me shivers and showed the impressive character development that Starr went through.

SPOILER: I also liked how the ending (with the police officer who killed Khalil not getting any jail time) was written. If the police officer had been prosecuted, it would have been out of line with the current events going on around in the United States. It also made the reader feel some very strong emotions of outrage towards the justice system, which helped the reader step into the shoes of the protagonist and the real-life people who are faced with the same experiences as her.

Cons: 

The only real problems that I found with this book was that it sometimes used topical terms used in current pop culture either made me cringe a little bit when mentioned in the story, or will with be outdated and not relevant in a couple years time.

Also, I had super high expectations for this book, as I had heard it mentioned on social media as a amazing book and had read a book with a similar content and LOVED it. However, my expectations were not totally met as the book wasn’t the page turner that I had wanted it to be, but it was still great.

Score: 8.5/10

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One of Us is Lying Book Review

One of Us Is Lying is the debut novel of Karen M. McManus. It’s a murder-mystery that follows a group of four teens who were present when a student dies during their detention, in which they are all suspects after the odd circumstances of the student’s death come to light.

The victim, Simon was widely hated throughout the school due to his gossip app that ruined many student’s lives.

The suspects:

Bronwyn is a straight-a student and future valedictorian who doesn’t break rules.

Cooper is a Ken-doll like baseball pitcher who is highly scouted by many colleges and MLB teams.

Addy is a homecoming queen beauty whose whole life revolves around the decisions her boyfriend makes for her.

Nate is on probation for drug-dealing who is constantly in trouble with the law and has fractured family.

These students, however, aren’t just one-note stereotypes, Simon was going to publish an article about them which would uncover all of the parts of them that they would wish to keep secret. When the Police find the archived article in Simon’s app, all of the students become suspects.

Bottom Line: I read this amazing book in one day, because I was so hooked and couldn’t put it down. Before that, I was in a major reading slump, and this book dug me out of that hole. I would recommend this to lovers to murder mysteries and YA readers.

My Rating: 9/10

Now, if you haven’t read the book, I would suggest that you stop reading here. I’m about to get into some serious spoilers.

The Ending:

Since this book is a murder mystery and a twist on the classic who-done-it, the ending can make or break the book. In my opinion, the ending fits the book nicely. None of the four main character are the murderer, which is proven through showing the action of the book from their alternating points of view and that none of the characters that the reader had grown to like turned out to be the murderer.

It also didn’t take the easy way out by pining the crime on a random minor character like Janae, Jake or the teacher. They were characters that didn’t carry emotional weight and would be an easy route for the author to go on. But no, she didn’t. The murder was Simon, in a twist that you could kind of see coming after they started to uncover the mystery, but seemed almost impossible to actually be true.

Simon’s suicide is a depressing outcome to a murder mystery, but it brings uncomfortable topics to light and shows how far a depressed kid with go to make sure that he makes as many people who wronged him suffer as possible. Additionally, it is also a cautionary tale about how the smallest actions can make the largest impact.

Character Development:

At the beginning of the book the characters seem to all be tropes that you see in your average YA novel, the nerd, the jock, the beauty queen and the outsider. Mainly, that’s because they are. To me, one of the best parts about this book was that you got to see the character grow into likable characters who change due to the events happening in the book.

Addy, for example, was a pitiful girl obsessed with her hair and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend, Jack, controls her life and even isn’t that nice to her while doing it. Her whole life revolves around him and she’s unlikable. However, by the end of the book, Addy has broken up with Jack, cut her hair short, and became a vital part in the investigation of finding out who really killed Simon. In detention scene, she is useless, scrambling around, freaking out, and ending up in a total meltdown afterwards. In contrast to that, in the end, she figures the answer to the murder mystery by going to Janae’s house and questioning her to understand who the true murderer was.

Nate also has lots of character development, which is shown when he sticks up for Cooper and falls in love with his polar opposite, Bronwyn. He stays out of trouble (for the most part) and tries to restart his relationship with his mom. At the beginning of the book, the rest of the three are sure that Nate is guilty of the crime, but when he is arrested towards the end of the book, they do anything in their power to prove that he is innocent.

Bronwyn probably evolves the least, but she still changed for the better. She kept most of her defining characteristics, like her intelligence and determination, but let herself go a little bit and stopped being super uptight. She fell in love with Nate, a “bad boy”, who she realizes actually isn’t that bad.

My favorite transformation, however, was Cooper’s. He starts out as a boring stereotypical jock who is destined for an even more mundane stereotypical life in the MLB. He is dating one of the prettiest, most popular girls in school and hangs out with the popular clique. For a while, it seemed like Cooper was going to stay that way. He was likable enough, being sweet to Addy after her meltdown and trying desperately to find an Epi Pen for Simon, but he seemed like a forgettable character that would disappear from your mind after you finished the book.

In one paragraph, Cooper’s character becomes a thousand times more interesting. We meet Kris, the guy that Cooper is in love with, and suddenly, Cooper isn’t a boring jock. He’s hiding the fact that he’s gay underneath a facade of perfectness. Cooper has to come to terms with his sexuality and stop hiding his true self from everyone. He has to come out to his homophobic dad, and his MLB and college offers disappear out of thin air. However, when Cooper finally comes to terms who he really is and a prominent figure stands up for him in the media, his college and MLB offers come back through the pipeline and his dad takes steps on the road to acceptance. Just to solidify Cooper development, he chooses to go to the college continued their offer with him when Cooper was under fire for being gay, even though that school wasn’t even in the top ten.

Those are the reasons why the book was impossible to put down for me, if you have read the book (and hopefully you have if you have gotten to this point), then what was your favorite part of the book?

 

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Make Reading Fun Again

Ever since I knew how, reading has been a passion of mine. When I pick up a book, I feel like I am in a whole different world. When my life gets tough, reading helps me escape to another story where all my troubles are momentarily put on hold.

However, escapism isn’t the only reason that I read: It also helps me learn. I have learned lessons about friendships, family, morals, and so many other life lessons through books. I hope to share the most important books to read here, on my blog.

Things that I will be Posting

Book Reviews/Recommendations

In this section of my blog, I will write about the books that I absolutely loved (or maybe didn’t). As I continue to read more and more books, I will write about them so I am able to stay current with the types of books that I read. I also will NOT be writing about books that I have read as an assignment in school. One of my goals for this blog is that it will encourage me to read outside of school more often, so writing about an assignment defeats the purpose. Also I am sure that everyone who reads my blogs will have read and deeply analyzed a book that is assigned in schools, or will have to eventually read that book at some point.

Misc. Articles

Book Reviews and Recommendations will be the main focus of my blog, but I (unfortunately) cannot read a book every week, so additional articles about aspects of books will fill the gap. These miscellaneous articles will cover topics from book series in my childhood to genres of books that I am tired of.

Therefore, my content will be coming soon! Is there anything else that you would like for me to blog about?

 

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