Shadow and Bone theme and summary

I've been reading the book Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo.  First off, let me say that this book is awesome!  The author includes strong imagery into her book to allow you to envision each scene as if it where happening on a TV screen in front of you.  She also uses other styles of figurative language to increase the understanding and visualization of the book. An example of this is "He nodded at me and spread his arms wide.  A tense silence descended as his hands filled with dark, swirling ribbons of blackness that bled into the air.  He brought his hands together with a resounding crack.  Nervous cries burst from the crowd as darkness blanketed the room.... Light flooded the throne room, drenching us in warmth and shattering the darkness like black glass. The court erupted into applause."  (Bardugo, 105-106).  This shows the authors great style of imagery, as well as an example of figurative language.  In this passage, she uses a simile, "...shattering the darkness like black glass." This helps you envision the blackness that surrounded the main character, Alina, and the Darkling, who is referred to as he in the passage, shattering as the light that Alina produces overpowers the Darklings black shadows. 

One of the themes in Shadow and Bone is no matter how hard you struggle to reach great power, you won't get it unless you have good intentions.  I say this because the Darkling tries to reach power by claiming that he wants to destroy the Fold (very big, bad place), but instead he wants to expand it to take out his enemies so he can control everyone.  Alina resists his power though, refusing him the pleasure of having power over everyone, so the Darkling never got what he wanted.

To summarize the book, Alina starts off as an orphan with her friend Mal.  They grow up together and get drafted into the army together.  But, Alina is a junior map maker and Mal is a very good tracker.  The army must travel through the fold in order to get supplies.  On their trip through the fold, they get attacked by very vicious animals called volcra, where Alina discovers that she has a power unlike any other Grisha, who are humans with supernatural powers, the Darkling being the most powerful, and she gets taken into the Grisha world.  She trains with many teachers to learn how to fight and also control her power, while the Darkling tries to get her onto his side.  Convincing her that he wants to destroy the Fold, Alina works even harder to master her power.  The Darkling claims that an amplifier, which is something that can amplify a Grisha's power, would help her.  So, he sends a tracking group from the army to search for it.  Once they get close to finding it, Baghra, who is the teacher that helped Alina master her power, warns her that the Darkling has no good intentions, and seeks ultimate power over everyone.  She gives Alina supplies, and helps her run away that night.  She runs, and almost gets caught twice.  When she was hiding the second time, Mal finds her.  He starts to take care of her while trying to find what the Darkling wants Alina's amplifier to be.  They find what the Darkling wanted , but the Darkling gets his hands on it as well, and gives it to Alina, where he can start to control her.  The Darkling takes her to the Fold to attempt to expand it, where Alina overcomes the Darkling's power and she saves Mals life.  They both escape form the Fold and go into hiding in a forest near a town.  In the chapter titled After, it shows that Mal and Alina make it onto a ship, going to the other side of the sea. It says that there where many different rumors that they heard claiming that Apparat, who was like a priest, had disappeared, foreign troops were surrounding their borders, and the 1st and 2nd armies where threatening to go to war with each other.  They also heard that the sun summoner, who is Alina, was dead.  The book ends with the line " They are orphans again, with no true home but each other and whatever life they can make together on the other side of the sea." (Bardugo, 356).

Oh Look Another Zombie Movie book review

Oh Look Another Zombie Movie by Spencer Walsh book review 

So, this post isn't about an actual book.  My friend Spencer Walsh enjoys writing and he just wrote this awesome book.  It’s called Oh Look another Zombie Movie.  The way that he wrote out the story is in a script-type fashion where the scenery is described in italics before the scene starts.  I feel that this makes the story even more interesting due to the fact that you can imagine the scene playing out in your head as if it were an actual movie.  The story is a comedy about zombie-killing lieutenants, captains, FBI agents, and other various people.  In his intro, he states that the story is written "South-park" style, where everything is fair game.  This is very true, due to the fact that almost anything can and will happen in his book.  If you think of it, it’s probably somewhere on the next page.  This book has lots of sarcasm and humor.  It’s a very fast-paced book, where you are pretty much on the edge of your seat waiting for the next big thing to happen. As many new characters are introduced, some characters leave through crazy deaths.  You will literally laugh out loud at some of the lines inside of the book, such as this one: "English Translator: Hello I am Barry, Mr. President. I am your English translator.

President: Nice to meet you Barry but who are all these people?

English Translator: Yeah, we couldn't find someone who spoke the Persian language and English and my second language was Japanese. Then Japanese to Spanish. Then Spanish to Dutch. Then Dutch to Swahili. Then Swahili to Finnish. Then Swahili to Mandarin. Then Mandarin to Italian. Then Italian to Hebrew-

Dr. Brooks: We get it! There are a lot of languages!" (Walsh, 82).  
I would highly suggest everyone read this.  As I've said numerous times, this book is very comical, as well as witty, and has a fun theme of a zombie apocalypse.  I've been trying to link the story to this post for about an hour now and it won't work, so if you want to read it I could email it to you, but I'm going to keep trying to find a way to link his story onto the blog, because it is a must read! Sorry I can't post it! 

The Kite Runner reading skills

The Kite Runner reading skills

I just started the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I'm only on page 40, so I can't tell you much. To me this book is very boring so far. I'm going to try and finish it, because I'm sure it picks up towards the middle. Plus, I don't have every right to say that the book is boring, because I'm only on page 40, as I said before. But, to me, the book needs to have a hook, something that makes the reader want to keep reading. The first line in the book, "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975." (Hosseini, 1), to me is a very good hook. It leaves the reader think what happened to make this person who they are today, as well as, what is this person today? The author begins to explain about their life before that summer, including many flashbacks, as well as lots of references to the title. To me, a powerful hook is very important, which the author included, but the author does not continue with his suspense and powerful writing. He just writes how things happen, which, in a nonfiction book, is very important, but I also think that he should state things in a more interesting way. Add in more powerful diction. There are lots of foreign words in this book, which make it a more difficult book to read and comprehend.

I'm currently wondering, because I have gotten to the point of the book where there was an attack, why there was an attack and gun fire in the middle of the night near the characters home. That question was answered on the next page, as the main character was interacting with another character, "'Have you heard the news, boys?' Assef said, his grin never faltering. 'The king is gone. good riddance. Long live the president!" (Hosseini, 39). Here the reader discovers why there was gun fire and lots of exploding the previous night before.

I predict that there will be a war between the people and the president, who turns into a dictator and tries to control the country, and the main character is forced to fight in the war for a little bit, but then moves away with his family. One thing I know for a fact is that the main character moves 5 years after, I'm assuming, the war starts. I assume this because in the opening line it says that this event made him who he is today in 1975 and in the author’s biography it says that he moved to America in 1980. "Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980." Using this textual support, I can predict that either he moved away or his family also moved with him to the United States because of a war. I predict that there is a war because of the gun fire exchanged and the bombings that happen on page 35, "Something roared like thunder. The earth shook a little and we heard the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire... A white light flashed, lit the sky in silver. It flashed again and was followed by a rapid staccato of gunfire." (Hosseini). Because of all of the gunfire and bombings that went on that night, I can assume that there will be a war. I say that because their king had the throne taken away and a president took over the government and the people where happy with the government that they had, so they will probably retaliate because they dislike the new form of government.

I can make a text-to-word connection to this book because this has happened in many countries where there was a war due to their president, king, or dictator being thrown out of the government and the people revolting due to disliking the new ruler, and the government fighting back. One specific example of this is the war that happened in Afghanistan, as well as Israel, and even back into colonial times with the American Revolution, and the French Revolution.

I can make a text-to-text connection to this book because there are many other books that are written about war over government, such as A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, The Bookseller of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad, and My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban - A Young Woman's Story by Latifa are a few examples.

I can't make any text-to-self connections, because I have not been through any type of war, or anything similar to what the main character has gone through in the book so far.

Khaled Hosseini has a website!! Go check it out to see all of the books that he's written and the book that he is currently working on too!! Khaled Hosseini

The Host characterization

The Host Characterization

I finished the book The Host by Stephenie Meyer because everyone was reading it last year and I decided it was time to see what everyone was talking about, and what the movie was about.   

Melanie Stryder is a human rebel who was captured before the book began.  She was implanted with a soul named Wanderer.  Melanie's consciousness survives being taken over by the soul and she resists being taken over completely even though the soul is inside of her.   She likes to retaliate to lots of problems with violence, which her soul doesn't like due to most souls hating any type of violence.  She is very protective over the things she loves, like her brother, Jamie, and her boyfriend, Jarred.  "I knew nothing of what passed for beauty among these strangers, and yet I knew that this face was beautiful.  I wanted to keep looking at it.  As soon as I realized this, it disappeared.  Mine, spoke the alien thought that should not have existed."  (Meyer, 13).  This quote shows that Melanie is protective over her boyfriend, which was the picture that the soul was looking at.  

Wanderer "Wanda" is the soul that was placed into Melanie's body.  Wanderer is like the typical soul,  she is naturally altruistic, horrified by violence, and finds it difficult to believably lie (to humans). She hates upsetting people and so suffers endlessly trying to be as little of a burden as possible.  She finds herself to start feeling how Melanie feels during her time spent in Melanie's body.  She starts to feel sympathetic towards humans, and even starts to feel love towards Melanie's boyfriend and brother, which makes her different.  

Ian O'Shea is one of the people to fall in love with Wanderer.  He claims that he is in love with her personality and does not care how she looks, so when she changes hosts, he does not help pick it out.  He gets annoyed with how she is so selfless towards others, afraid that it will eventually hurt her as well. 

Jarred Howe is Melanie's boyfriend.  They met when they where raiding the same house for food.  At first he thought that Melanie was a soul, and when he found out that she was human, he was so excited that he kissed her, making them both fall in love.  He claims that Wanderer took Melanie's life, but starts to grow on her when he sees her comforting a dying friend.  He also cares for Melanie's brother Jamie when she was captured, making him a parental figure towards Jamie.  

Jamie Stryder is Melanie's little brother.  He wants to be treated as an adult- meaning going on the raids with their group.  He is one of the only ones to like Wanderer immediately  viewing her as a substitute sister.  

This is a video of the author Stephenie Meyer talking about her book and movie! 

Divergent book recomendation

Divergent Book Recomendation

Over the weekend, I read the book Divergent.  I finished it today.  This book is absolutely amazing.  It captures the readers attention in the first paragraph, "There is one mirror in my house.  It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs.  Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair." (Roth, 1).  When I read that, some questions came into my head. Why is there only one mirror? What it a faction?  Why only that one time can this person look in the mirror one time?  Those may even be questions you are asking yourself, and if you decide to keep reading, which I highly suggest you do, you will find those answers.  This book, both action, adventure, and a hint of romance, will be very hard to put down when you read it.  If you have read this book already, I'm sure you would agree with me that this book is one of the best books ever published.  The main character, Beatrice, is very fun to read about.  Hearing her thoughts and words takes the book to a whole new level of awesome.  You get to read along as she goes through dramatic changes throughout the book, making her a dynamic character.  This book is a series, which means I will be hunting for the second book, Insurgent, ASAP.  I would recommend this book to anyone who has a taste for adventure, danger, action, and just a dash of romance.  If you think "Eww, romance no way and I going to read that!", you are wrong.  Read it, now.  There isn't a ton of it in there.  Its not a love story, I promise you that.  More like the opposite of a love story.  So, READ THE BOOK.  NOW.