Fallen by Lauren Kate/Books vs Films in general/Bechel Test ???

Hi Guys,

Another book review.

I recently started reading Fallen by Lauren Kate. This is a young adult romance/fantasy novel based around the Biblical story of Lucifer's fall from Heaven.

I saw the film on Netflix and started watching it just from the description and I didn't really enjoy it. It had sounded very interesting and a bit like Hush, Hush, (which is also about fallen angels and is very good) but it was a bit slow for me and the script wasn't brilliant.

So, in typical ME fashion, I went online to read some of the reviews from critics and other people who had watched it, just to see whether I had missed the point of the film. I saw a lot of reviews from people on Goodreads and other websites, saying that the books were so much better and they hadn't liked the film because it didn't do the books justice. So, I was very excited, because, 9/10, I enjoy the book much more than the film and I find that the films often can't capture the unique nature of the book. (e.g. The Mortal Instruments, Eragon, The Percy Jackson Series ...


***Actually, on a side note, this is something that has always annoyed me about film adaptations of books. If a book is very popular and does very well with audiences, why would a film company think that they will have the same success by taking that name, (and everything that is associated with it) and changing the story line so drastically that it doesn't even resemble the book anymore. *cough, cough* PERCY JACKSON - SEA OF MONSTERS. That wasn't the ending in the book, why would you do that?!  I understand that a film can't include EVERYTHING, obviously, but it shouldn't try and make a new story and new characters, unless it explicitly says that it is only BASED on the book, and not trying to make an ADAPTATION. And, along the same lines, if it isn't trying to be explicitly about the book, they should make that clear to the audiences beforehand.***

Anyway, rant number one over. Moving on to rant number two. :) So, Fallen. OF COURSE, IN MY REVIEW, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

It is the story of a girl called Lucinda, (or Luce) and she has to go to a rehabilitation school, because of her association with the death of a boy that she liked. His name was Trevor. She can also see these strange 'shadows' that have followed her around for her whole life. She has been on medication for hallucinations and mental illnesses. At the school, she quickly meets two boys who both attract her, Daniel and Cam. Luce is almost immediately attracted to these two boys at the school. She feels a strange connection to Daniel but she can't explain it. He is also very mean to her. Cam is very nice to her and is clearly attracted by her in some way.

This was a very popular book when it came out in 2009. It was a bestseller and there was a lot of hype around the film etc. There are also great review in the book from other authors and so I was very excited to read it.

To be honest, I haven't finished reading the book and I don't want to make assumptions from the film but I have read about 2/3 and I have some opinions about it that I want to share. They know that they might be slightly harsh :/


1) I don't like the portrayal of the 'love triangle'. Luce is presented as a very insipid, needy, whiny kind of girl and all of her thoughts, all the time, are taken up either thinking about Daniel or about Cam. To put the extent into perspective, in one scene, she is at a funeral of a boy called Todd. Todd died in a fire caused by the shadows that follow Luce around. It is a very serious moment. It was the way that the other boy Trevor died. (Actually, in the film, this was one of the scenes I did like.) Luce's best friend, Penn, liked Todd and is distraught. And Luce is thinking about the flowers that Daniel sent her. She is still trying to choose between Cam and Daniel, right there in the middle of the funeral. I just find these types of female protagonists to be so annoying. I am not saying that every book needs to pass the Bechdel Test or be directed at a pure feminist crowd, but this persistent representation of (usually) girls who just lose their minds over a boy is just something so archaic to me that we should try and get rid of.

2) Daniel is so mean to Luce and Luce likes him anyway. In their first encounter, he gives her the middle finger and, every other moment they meet for about half of the book, he makes it clear that he doesn't want anything to do with her. She shouldn't like him or want to be in a relationship with him. It might sound very old fashioned or naive but I don't think that this is a positive message or positive idea about a relationship for our society. As they end up together, it almost 'justifies' the way he treated her and the way she obsessed over him and, personally, it just makes me annoyed.


I know that I am probably reading too much into it and, if that kind of romance genre and story line is something that you enjoy reading, then you may love this book. I will say that I have bought the second book in the series and I will finish Fallen, despite my complaints about it because I do want to give it a chance to redeem itself. However, I do stick by my opinion about the shallowness of the whole story, on the romance front and how much it annoys me. I just think that is perpetrates the stereotype that if a boy likes a girl, he has to be mean to her and that should keep the girl interested. I don't think that should be something that we promote.

Anyway, just some food for thought as always,
DISCLAIMER : I love books and I love reading and most authors work very hard on their novels and try and come up with something original and enjoyable and I commend that. :D

Clare 

Rebooting, Reviewing and Cloning

Hey guys ...

Long time, no see. I'm kick-starting this blog again. With a book review. I just finished reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This book has been sitting on my shelf for a while and I finally got around to reading it. First of all, I had to persevere with it. In fact, when I first starting reading it, I stopped because I didn't get the story line but then I came back and I can assure you it is a very good book. :)

A little synopsis: Never Let Me Go is set in a skewed modern English society. It follows the lives of three children, Kathy (the protagonist who narrates the story), Ruth (her best friend) and Tommy, growing up in a boarding school called Hailsham. Hailsham is completely isolated from the rest of the society. From the beginning of the book, you can tell that something isn't quite right about the school and the society that they grow up in from the way that Kathy recalls her childhood and subsequent teens there. Through the book, Kathy reveals what the society is like and raises very interesting moral issues, questions and dilemmas about the modern world.

Okay, a heads up. I am going to discuss some of the most interesting themes for me in the book but that means that there WILL BE SPOILERS. So maybe go and read the book first and then come back or proceed, whichever you prefer. :)




The most interesting part of the book for me was the question about clones. SPOILERS!!! In Never Let Me Go, the children in Hailsham are clones of members of society and, when they get to a certain age, they start donating their organs and they eventually die. So, basically, they exist solely to harvest human organs. During my Spanish and French A level courses, I had to do some research into animal cloning and human cloning. Is it okay to clone humans? Should we clone ourselves in order to have a 'second chance' at life? Is it okay to use clones to harvest organs, as in this book?
In our world today, people clone their pets in order to have more time with another identical version of their dog or their cat and animal cloning is widely used in different industries. The key issue when discussing human clones is whether they deserve the same rights as 'normal' humans and whether they are capable of experiencing the same things as humans, on a physical and emotional level. Now, if clones are NOT capable of feeling or experiencing the same emotions as 'normal' humans, perhaps using them as donors and harvesting them as such is okay. Food for thought ... Personally, I don't agree with using cloning like that because, for me, it assumes a higher place than what humans should have.
But, the thing about this book that was quite chilling for me, was that we didn't discover that they were clones until we had seen them experience the same complicated emotions that we do: anger, happiness, frustration ... etc. Also, they were already resigned to their fate. They had no realistic aspirations for their lives because they knew how they would play out and how they would end, from very little children. They would joke around about being a doctor or a movie star or even a secretary or assistant and a teacher would say that they had to stop thinking like that. Their lives and their purpose was predestined and there was nothing that they could do to change that. Just think about that. Imagine waking up and knowing that your whole life had been determined and none of your hopes and aspirations meant anything.


Another very interesting theme for me was the role of art and creativity in the book. As someone who has always preferred more creative subjects at school and wants to be an author, creativity is very important for me. In Hailsham, creativity played a crucial role. The children were valued by the teachers and by the other students based on the quality of what they could create and write and draw. One of the main characters, Tommy, isn't very good at all of these things and he is bullied, quite viciously for it. But, the key thing here is that the teachers were looking at their art work to reveal their souls. I know that sounds overly dramatic but, in other words, they were trying to work out whether the clones had the emotion to create art, in whatever form that took. In the book, it is revealed that there were other boarding schools like Hailsham  but none of them used art in the same way. Hailsham was an experiment in itself, to prove that the clones had the ability to be like 'normal' humans.
At certain times throughout history, in Communist Russia and Franco's Spain for instance, the teaching of art and creativity was prohibited because it encouraged people to think outside the box and challenge ideas and therefore the government. There is a very interesting story about a Russian composer who wrote a piece for a orchestra that was literally three or four notes and the last page was a page of the same note, over and over again. Looking at that, we see huge restrictions but it shows the extent to which we, as humans, create and appreciate creativity.
At the moment, there has been a lot of talk about cutting school funding for creative subjects and pushing forward Maths and Science. For me, this is very sad. I have never been good at Science and I was abysmal at Maths. I don't have a very logical brain and I think that by cutting that funding, we limit, as a society, the ability to do something that makes us inherently human.
The society in the book saw clones as evolved computers. They could function by themselves, they could live a 'normal' life but they couldn't appreciate things as humans. Hailsham saw them as more than that and that's where the importance of art came in. The clones could create beautiful things and appreciate the world around them in a way that is exclusive to human beings, showing that they were more than just donors. They could be people, like everyone else.


Anyway, I hope that made sense and I hope that it made you think about a few things. I just read through it and realised that it is a lot of rambling but hopefully you took a few things from it.

I believe that there is also a film of Never Let It Go with Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield. I've never seen it but maybe that is something that you would like to look into before/after reading the book.

As usual, thanks for reading,
Clare

Changeling by Philippa Gregory

Hello everyone,

It has been a while, I know. :( I didn't intend to keep off blogging for this long but stuff happens, I guess. But I'm back now with another book review. Surprise, surprise! I have to admit that recently I have ordered a lot of books online (around about 20), and a lot of them were by the same authors so I'm afraid my blog will start to look like a shrine. But that doesn't matter. Anyway ... on with the review.

So I read Changeling by Philippa Gregory. It is part of a trilogy called the Order of Darkness trilogy. I have to say that I was a little tentative about reading it, simply because I LOVE Philippa Gregory's books on the Tudor and Plantagenet periods and I was worried that it might not live up to my expectations. I was completely wrong about that. Changeling is set in the 1400s and tells the story about a boy called Luca Vero, who has to travel across the country, finding about what makes people scared. This is at a time when people are scared about the end of the world. There was a great fear of witchcraft and of the Devil possessing people and religion was used as a means of controlling the common people and getting them to do things. Luca travels to a convent where the nuns believe that they have been possessed and Luca has to find out what is going on.

Some themes in the book...

I think I have already done an overall theme about religion when talking about Purple Hibiscus  so I won't talk about that again. Instead, I am going to talk about fear and ignorance and the role that they play in society and control. It is a really important part of the book. The nuns in the convent are scared that the Devil has come among them and is possessing the sisters. The people in the village are scared of the werewolf. A generalisation is that people are scared about things that they don't understand or can't make sense of. One of the characters is a Muslim, in a time when Muslims were seen as heretics and pagans and Islam was very 'dangerous' because it threatened the spread of Christianity in Europe and into the Middle East. It is clear that because they don't understand her beliefs and who she is, they associate everything else that they fear with her. Not only that, but they are encouraged to do so by the bishops and the lords and those people in charge who are also scared about things that they don't understand. And now, in this day and age, although I would like to think that we don't fear so much Satan walking among us, we do have a tendency to avoid or be afraid of what we don't understand. Fear is a perfectly natural reaction to things but, as a race, we sometimes take it out of context and blow it out of proportion. Racism, particularly in the wake of terrorist attacks, can stem from ignorance which results in fear and aggression. We are scared by what we see , naturally, and we want to understand it, so we blame someone in order to personify our fear and make it seem less scary. We are scared of an apocalyptic cult that wants to destroy the world and so we blame someone innocent to reduce the anonymity of it. Obviously in the past, at the time when this book takes place, the higher, intelligent elite used religion to scare the people into submission. 'Do this or you are going to Hell.' 'Your king has been elected by God and therefore you have to follow him' 'His law is God's law'. But similarly, people didn't understand religion in the way that they perhaps understand it today because many of the religious books were in Latin and/or people couldn't read. So fear of Hell for them was real and therefore, they did as they were told.

Recommendations

The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory
This is an amazing book by the same author about Elizabeth I, her assumed affair with Robert Dudley and the scandal that surrounded the death of his wife Amy Dudley.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio
On the theme of fear in a present day setting, this is a beautiful book about a boy who was born with a facial deformity and has to go to school  and face all of the stigmas that are associated with being different.

And that's the end of this post. :) I hope you enjoyed it.

Clare

So it goes...

Hello everyone...

This is a book review but it won't be structured like the other ones because I wanted to discuss some stuff in more detail. So get ready for a lot of writing...

On Monday, I finished reading Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut. This is an anti-war novel which is slightly autobiographical because it speaks about the bombing of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during the Second World War by the Americans and Vonnegut was present there. 

However, the main storyline follows a man called Billy Pilgrim, who was also at the bombing. Billy Pilgrim has the ability to travel through time and experiences moments in the past, present and future. So, within Billy Pilgrim's story, there are two stories: Pilgrim's experience of the war and his experience of moments of his life, in the past, present and future and not in chronological order either. 

It is a mind-blowing novel and strongly competes with The Picture of Dorian Grey for being my favourite novel of all time. When it was published as well, it was so controversial, because of all its depictions of war and people in the war and it was one of the first books, I believe, that pointed out that homosexuals were also victims of the Nazi Holocaust, something that wasn't widely acknowledged. There were so many themes in it that messed with your ideas about time and the point of things that we do and, in essence, the pointlessness of the time we spend worrying about useless things. I will not be able to do it justice by explaining it because I believe that it is far more effective to experience it personally but I will try...

Some of the main themes...

The most interesting idea in the book was one about moments in time. Many people around Billy Pilgrim were dying, some in the war and some members of his family as well. When Billy Pilgrim travelled in time, he met a race called the Tralfamadorians from the place called Tralfamadore. They were aliens and they taught him this idea about moments. Humans can only see in three dimensions but Tralfamadorians can see in four. In the fourth dimension, moments in life are all occurring and then re-occurring simultaneously and endlessly. A person's life is a period of time, the past, the present and the future where there are thousands of moments. And, at some point in that person's life, they was a moment when they were happy and alive and well, even for just a second, or a split-second. And, when they died, it didn't matter that in that moment, they were dead and you weren't going to see them again because there were always moments that they were happy and alive and these moments keep replaying in the fourth dimension. 'The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exists.' This race, the Tralfamadorians, said that they saw human beings as millipedes with their baby legs at one end and their adult legs on the other end. Just an object made out of time and moments. I believe that it would be very interesting to try and live life, imagining every moment to not be lost but instead strung on a line in front of you and you could revisit them as you pleased. 

Linking on to this idea about moments, there was an idea about the illusion of free will. If every moment is continually re-occurring in the fourth dimension, a dimension that we cannot access because we are blind to that part of the universe, we have no free will because our life is already written out and happening, even if we, in the present, of whatever dimension we are in now, do not realise it. We think that we are choosing to do something really original and that we can do that because we have free will but it has already happened, even while you are debating whether or not to do it. One of the controversial ideas about this book and a reason that it was banned from a lot of schools in America, was because it was considered to be anti-Christian. But, that is an variation of an idea in Christianity, that God knows everything that will happen and is happening and so your life is in His control and you don't need to worry. Interesting.

There was also a repeated phrase. So it goes. and it was linked in with an idea about the uselessness of massacres and wars. Whenever someone died, Billy Pilgrim would say 'So it goes'. That means, whatever happens, happens and there is nothing that you can do about it. Death is inevitable and the only thing that we know for certain, above all else, is that we are going to die. There is no escaping it.

For example. 'His name was Howard W. Campbell, Jr. He would later hang himself awaiting trail as a war criminal. So it goes.' and 'The Germans carried the corpse out. The corpse was Wild Bob. So it goes.' By saying 'So it goes' after every death, it also puts every death on the same level. It didn't matter whether they were a major, colonel, private, Nazi, American, English or whatever, their deaths were all the same because they were the same in life, human with ideas and morals and faults, just the same. One death isn't even a pinprick on the entire universe and it meant nothing if put against the whole picture, even though it had devastating consequences on those affected.

This book also gives you a sense of where humans are in the world. During World War II, so much was devastated and destroyed, the city of Dresden was annihilated, so many people died and so on and so forth. However, when combined with ideas about the scope of our planet and our world and therefore us, living on this tiny world, the devastation is lessened in a sense. It isn't that it no longer affects us, but even though, it may destroy us, it doesn't matter at all to the rest of the universe. (I know I didn't explain that very well, but hopefully you will understand.) 

Another thing that I love about it, is the irregularity of the writing. In a way, nothing flows but at the same time, it does. I don't know how to explain it exactly. The storyline jumps around a lot and isn't chronologically written either. At the beginning of the novel, it can be quite difficult to understand what it going on but then you re-read certain parts and they make complete sense. Like I said, it is mind-blowing. 

Okay...I'm done. 

Clare 

Favourite Things-July Edition

Hello Everyone...

When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I am feeling sad. I simply remember my favourite things and then I don't feel so bad-! July Edition 

It is the end of the month again and so I thought I would share with you my favourite things from July. Here we go!

Favourite Book: Water for Elephants  

Out of the books that I have read over July, Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen has been my favourite. The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne Du Maurier is a close second, but I read them both over my holiday and Water for Elephants was easier to read and the storyline was a little simpler. And so it wins! 

Water for Elephants Review

Before I Die Review

The Flight of the Falcon Review

Favourite Place Visited: Segovia 

I feel like after doing all those reviews on places I had seen in Spain, I had to choose my favourite place. Segovia wins by a mile! It is a beautiful city and I saw so many amazing things there. And it is also surrounded by mountains and I love the mountains so you know. 

Check out my review here 

And also...Plaza de Toros and Botanical Gardens

Favourite YouTube Channel: BuzzFeed 

BuzzFeed have several different channels dealing with different areas, for instance BuzzFeedBlue deals with more scientific stuff and DIYs videos, BuzzFeedYellow deals with society-orientated issues, like sexuality and more issues that I can't think of right now, BuzzFeedViolet is a lot of really relatable, awkward situations that you find yourself in, like 'Why am I always late?' and 'What people do when they are home-alone?' and BuzzFeedVideo is just a combination of nerdy, weird, funny things. And the videos are all quite short so you can watch them really easily, without wasting loads of time, and you learn some stuff so it's great.

BuzzFeedVideo 

BuzzFeedBlue

BuzzFeedYellow

BuzzFeedViolet  

Favourite Videos

YouTuber Rumours? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TitLRNH2WKc 

Surprising my brother on his birthday 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRXhWRq5EI8

The Definition of 'Sexy' around the World 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzlFh3DZF8g

The Christian Holocaust 

http://youtu.be/gJM-NSMjyKg  

Favourite Film: Inception

This film is incredible, to say the least. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards and won four of them for special effects and stuff. Inception is a film about dreams and dreams within dreams. An extractor, someone who can take information out of people's dreams, (Leonardo DiCaprio) has to plant an idea in the dream of the son of a very successful businessman to try and get him to divide his empire. The first ten minutes have you completely confused and most people have to watch it a few times in order to fully understand but it isn't frustrating if you don't get the whole story first time. On the contrary. It is fascinating. Christopher Nolan has done an amazing job at directing it and it has action sequences and it is really thrilling. Leonardo DiCaprio plays in it with Ellen Page and Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I really recommend you see it if you haven't already. 

Favourite Fact of July

When you are in water and the skin on your fingers and toes goes all crinkly, it is to improve your grip on wet and submerged objects and is an old adaptation that we no longer need because we don't live in water anymore.

Favourite Songs 

Super Trouper by ABBA

Voulez-Vous by ABBA

Waterloo by ABBA

I Don't Care, I Love It by Icona Pop

Angel with a Shotgun by The Cab

Try by P!nk

Elastic Heart by Sia 

A few little beauty/fashion items...

Sandals

I bought these from Marks and Spencer because my old ones had a sole that was wearing very thin and I kept slipping in them. These cost about £29.00, I think, but they are really comfortable. I did a lot of walking in them and I didn't get any blisters or anything. They are really sturdy as well, a reason why I don't like flip-flops very much because they are really flimsy sometimes. These sandals do give you some strange tan lines but that is the only complaint. 

Palmer's Coconut Oil Formula Leave In Conditioner 

I have nothing but praise to give this. As I think I have mentioned before, I am cursed with having really thin frizzy hair which is horrible. Especially after being in the water, (in the sea or swimming pool) and the humidity, (in England or Spain), my hair gains about five centimeters of frizz that just grows and grows. I don't even know where it comes from because I don't have a lot of hair. But this conditioner doesn't make it feel greasy or oil and all of the tangles brush out really easily and it smells divine. I also have a really difficult time brushing my hair when it is dry and usually have to comb it because using a brush is sort of a death wish and this really helps calm it. 

Mango Body Butter

This, I have mixed feelings about. Sometimes, I love it but sometimes, not so much. However, I have been using it a lot during July so I thought that it deserved a mention. This is the Body Shop's Body Butter in the scent Mango. I have their Body Mist in Grapefruit but the Grapefruit Body Butter smells really weird, I thought, so I went for mango instead. On the one hand, this is really moisturizing and its scent stays on the skin for a long time but on the other hand, you have to be careful with how much you put on because it can leave your skin feeling very oily and uncomfortable. So you have to find a balance.  

And there you have it! Favourites from July, done and dusted! As always, I hope you enjoyed it. 

Clare

The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne Du Maurier

Hey everyone...

This is the last book review of the holidays. I read The Flight of the Falcon by Daphne Du Maurier. I have heard that Daphne Du Maurier's style of writing is quite an 'acquired taste' and people I know who like all the same genres that I do, really dislike Du Maurier's way of writing. For my part, I like it. Her books are classified as classics, but they don't feel like you are reading a classic. For instance, when reading Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, there is a particular feel to the book, in my opinion, and you know that it is a 'hard' read. However, I don't find that with Du Maurier's books. I think her most famous book is Rebecca and I have read that, but I preferred her less well known ones, The King's General, for example and My Cousin Rachel.

The Flight of the Falcon takes place in Italy, about thirty years or so after the end of WWII, in a town called Ruffano. A lot of Daphne Du Maurier's books are part of a mystery genre. Although not drastically so, the characters are always discovering things or finding out things, as well as having a different overall storyline. This particular protagonist, a man called Armino Fabbio, is a tour guide across Italy, when he hears of the murder of his childhood nurse. This murder is a reoccuring theme throughout the book however, at the same time, there is another storyline about a annual Festival held in Ruffano and incidents surrounding that. Maybe I should include the blurb here, because I am not very good at summarising stories. :/

BLURB 
Armino Fabbio leads a pleasant, if humdrum life - until he becomes circumstantially involved in the murder of an old peasant woman in Rome. The woman, he gradually learns, was his family's beloved servant many years ago, in his native town of Ruffano.
Over five hundred years before, the sinister Duke Claudio, known as The Falcon, lived his twisted, brutal life preying on the people of Ruffano. Now, in the twentieth century, the town seems to have forgotten its violent history. But have things really changed?

What I liked about the book 
As I said, Du Maurier's style of writing is one that I enjoy. Her description is not present in vast quantities but is detailed and very effective. The story nevers 'sits still', and there are loads of details that you think are insignificant but all come together at the end in a really cool way and I didn't expect the ending at all. Du Maurier is very good at making you believe something and then completely changing your mind. If you have read Rebecca, you will know what I mean. I loved the way that she developed her characters and the relationships between them, particularly the two brothers that feature heavily. I also liked the way that when thinking about the book, the storyline seems really complicated because there are so many different things happening but, when you are reading it, it is really easy to understand.

Issues discussed in the book
In this book, there is a clear theme of history repeating itself. Dictators and heroes appear throughout history, repeated whenever the time so dictates. This theme, of history repeating itself, is used often in books because it can be interpreted and written in many different ways and I, for one, like this type of theme. In this book, Duke Claudio 'reappears' in another form and there are parallels between events in the past and events in the present.
I love history, because I think that humans, in our arrogance and ignorance, don't learn from our mistakes and will continue to repeat them until the end of time. In a way, we think that because we are at the top of the food chain, we are somehow incapable of making mistakes and so refuse to see them when they happen.
People say that history is a dying subject, one that is studied simply because of interest in the past and plays no role in the future. I disagree. Look at the period of history a few years before this book, from the years 1914-1991. Three big wars during that time. WWI, WWII and the Cold War. Well, I could say from that that there will be another war some time because we obviously have not learnt our lesson. WWI was supposed to be the war to end all wars and then came WWII and the Holocaust. Although there was no actual fighting in the Cold War, directly between the Soviets and the Americans, during that period of time there was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the greatest threat of nuclear war this world has ever seen, and the Afghanistan War, which lasted for ten years and cost something like 1.5 million lives. I think only time will tell when another war comes but I feel sure that it will come, because we never learn.

Wow, that was a happy ramble. Quick, onto the recommendations.

Recommendations
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke - This is the first book in a trilogy. I have read all of them. They were originally written in German but have been translated into English. It is about a girl called Meggie who loves books and her dad is a bookbinder. But then, a stranger comes to their house and Meggie is taken on a journey of discovery about powers that she has only read about. Although, history does not repeat itself exactly, the past does return to haunt Meggie and her dad, Mortimer.

The King's General by Daphne Du Maurier- If you read The Flight of the Falcon and enjoy it, I recommend that you check out Daphne Du Maurier's other books. My favourite is The King's General. It is about the Civil War in England between the King and Parliament. But it is also a love story between Honor Harris and Richard Grenville, the general of the King's army. It is inspired by a horrible discovery in a house in the nineteenth century and the discovery is featured in the book. So read it and find out! :)

BUY INKHEART ON AMAZON
BUY THE KING'S GENERAL ON AMAZON
BUY THE FLIGHT OF THE FALCON ON AMAZON

Well, that is it for this blog post. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you check out the books I recommended.:)


Clare

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Hello Everyone...
I'm back. Back from Spain. I read three books over the two weeks and this is number one. It is called Before I Die by Jenny Downham. For those who have read it, I know that it is not a very 'happy' book, in the fact it is about a girl who is dying of cancer but it is an interesting book and very uplifting at the end and it does present a series of interesting questions and situations. (Before I begin, I would like to say that when I go on holiday, probably contrary-wise to the majority of the book fanatic population, I like to take books that I don't have time to read during the non-holiday period. That means, usually, they are difficult to read or they are quite different books. I don't take 'easy' novels on holiday. So, with that in mind, if you like something simple to read while you are chilling out on holiday somewhere, I will give some recommendations below so you can skip this review and check those out.)
Before I Die is about a girl called Tessa, who is dying of cancer but she has a list of things that she wants to do before she dies. The list evolves and changes, going from being very superficial and almost crude to becoming deeper and more beautiful. 

What I liked about the book
Jenny Downham is an amazing writer, that much is clear from her style and way of writing. She is slightly ambiguous at times in her metaphors and similes but I think it is very beautiful. However, the character of Tessa annoyed me sometimes in the way that she saw the world and her actions. I also did not like the message that could have been interpreted from the book. Tessa's list of things to do included illegal things and she said that she was 'living'. I quote, 'stay wrapped in blankets and get on with dying, or get the list back together and get on with living'. I personally was not too impressed with this because I believe that it could affect readers in the wrong way. To me, the quality of life does not affect whether or not you are living truly but, nonetheless, I did enjoy the book. (I have just realised that I probably sound like a real killjoy in all of these reviews. I just have very definite and probably controversial views so...sorry about that.) 

Issues presented in the book
I suppose one of the biggest issues in the book was this idea of the quality of life and how it affects the way that you see the world and the way in which you see life. Tessa had a poor quality of life, that much was clear because she was dying of cancer but she tried to improve but doing different things and changing her attitude along the way. I guess that one of the greatest things in the book is that by the end she realised that fulfilling a list of things does not make life any worse or better. Life isn't improved by doing a list of things; that isn't how life gets better. She finds out, as I suppose the reader might as well, that life is life. People and experiences make it more enjoyable but not really better. Wow, deep. On the cover of the book, there is a quote from a reviewer that says 'a book that will make you happy to be alive.' and it really is. It did make me appreciate the things that I have and the illnesses that I don't have and, when you finish the book, you feel cathartic.  

Recommendations (for Before I Die)

Mister God, This Is Anna by Sydney Hopkins, under the pseudonym Fynn- This is one of my favourite books of all time. It is the story of a girl called Anna, of about five years old, who is found by a nineteen-year old boy called Fynn on the streets in London. Fynn takes her home to live with him and his mother because Anna doesn't seem to have a family. It is the story of Anna through Fynn's eyes, her constant outpouring of information about all the different issues in the world and her explanation of her friend and mentor, Mister God. It is an adorable story and it is so sweet.  

Eva's Story by Eva Schloss - Another great book. Eva Schloss is the step-sister of Anne Frank. When Anne, her sister and mother died in the concentration camps, Eva's brother and dad died and therefore Otto Frank and Eva's mum married after the war. I have met Eva Schloss and she signed my copy of Eva's Story. ;) It is not as well known as Anne Frank's diary but I think I prefer Eva's Story. It is so heartbreaking and so authentic that it makes me cry every time I read it. It is the story of Eva's experience in the concentration camps of the Nazis and her story of survival. Every time you read it, it makes you marvel at the things people think they are justified in doing to others. It is really, very sad.

BUY MISTER GOD, THIS IS ANNA ON AMAZON
BUY EVA'S STORY ON AMAZON
BUY BEFORE I DIE ON AMAZON

Recommendations (for holiday books)
All of these are quite short books that could be read over a short period of time and I have chosen a few different categories so you can pick and choose.
FOR THOSE THAT WANT A QUICK READ-
Cool by Michael Morpurgo - the story of a boy called Robbie in a coma after being in a car accident. It is actually really uplifting and surprisingly amusing at times.
The Dancing Bear by Michael Morpurgo - this is the story of a bear that is adopted by a  orphan girl and she raises him but then a film crew comes to the village and they want a dancing bear.
Toro! Toro! by Michael Morpurgo - Antonito lives on a bull farm in Spain. His favourite bull is called Paco but then he finds out that Paco is headed for the bullring.
BUY COOL ON AMAZON
BUY THE DANCING BEAR ON AMAZON
BUY TORO! TORO! ON AMAZON

FOR THOSE THAT WANT SOME COMEDY 
My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell- This is the story of a boy who moves to Corfu with his family and loves animals. He keeps trying to bring wildlife into the house and that, along with his highly eccentric family, makes it a really funny book
BUY MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS ON AMAZON

FOR THOSE THAT WANT A LITTLE ROMANCE 
Amy and Roger's EPIC Detour by Morgan Matson- This is the story of a road trip between California and the East Coast. Amy Curry hasn't been able to drive a car since her father's death and so Roger drives them. And you can guess what happens next... ;)
BUY AMY AND ROGER'S EPIC DETOUR ON AMAZON

FOR THOSE THAT WANT TO BE SCARED 
Coraline by Neil Gaiman- I wasn't scared by this book but it is classified as paranormal. It is the story of Coraline, who has moved into a new house and behind the door in her drawing room is another house where live people who have buttons for eyes. It is just really creepy. If you like that...
BUY CORALINE ON AMAZON

Well, finally we have got to the end of this review. Wow, it has been long. I hope you enjoyed it and you like some of the books that I recommend. I have two more reviews coming out, one will probably be today and the other tomorrow morning some time.


Clare

Favourite Things- June edition

Hello everyone...
When the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I am feeling sad. I simply remember my favourite things and then I don't feel so bad! June edition!
Okay, I know mostly these are done as fashion or makeup tags but I've taken my favourite things from everywhere as a memorial to June 2015. Enjoy! 

Favourite book: MERCY 

I have decided that when choosing my favourite book I am going to choose from the list of those that I have already reviewed in that month so that you can go back and check them out in the reviews and buy them if you want to (there are direct links to Amazon). So Mercy is my favourite this month because it is one of Jodi Picoult's and it was so interesting to read about what is illegal but what might be moral depending on you moral compass. Still Alice is a close runner up. They are both incredible books though and well worth reading. Take them on holiday or something. :) 
Mercy Review
Still Alice Review
Purple Hibiscus Review

                                          MOLESKINE NOTEBOOKS 

These are my favourite notebooks of all time. Don't worry! They are not real moleskin! I use them for my diaries and I have a new one every year. Recently, I discovered a green one for 2015 (see picture) but in previous years, I have had black only. They have a little pocket at the back of them, where I keep little souvenirs from the year and a ribbon to mark your spot and an elastic band to keep it closed.  I would prefer it if they had bigger spaces between the lines because my handwriting is huge but it doesn't really matter because you needn't be constricted by the lines and you can write on every other line or something, (as I do) 
.

NOTE CARDS AND HIGHLIGHTERS AND FINELINERS
So, at the beginning of June, I had my exams and obviously, revision was high on my list of priorities during that time. I find that colour coding notes really helps me to remember the stuff particularly when similar pieces of information are written in similar colours. Highlighting the most important bits or the bits that I keep forgetting makes them really stand out as well and the crazier the colours of the highlighters,the better. I study history and there was so much to learn for the three exams and therefore, I found that writing dates or timelines out on little pieces of card and learning those as well as my full set of detailed notes helped to absorb it all. So maybe, if you have difficulty with absorbing huge amounts of information write the key details/dates/names of specialist cells on little cards and it really helps. They can be bought at any stationary shop, like WHSmith or anything similiar. 

YOUCOLLAGE

YOUCAM 

YOUCAM and YOUCOLLAGE 
These are my two favourite apps for this month. I think that they are available on Apple but I have an Android phone so I am not 100% sure. 
YOUCAM is an app where you can take pictures with a variety of settings and filters and then you can make all different types of collages and edit them in a variety of ways. There is also a beauty forum, (which I don't use) but you can chat to people who like the same beauty and fashion things that you do and share your pictures. 
YOUCOLLAGE is in case you just want to make collages without any settings or fancy design. They are really convenient when you have a group of pictures that you want to put together in one place. 


THATCHERJOE YOUTUBE CHANNEL

My favourite YouTube channel of this month is that of ThatcherJoe. His videos are hilarious, especially his prank videos and his vlogs are really fun to watch as well. I'll link his channel below so that you can watch his videos. 
https://m.youtube.com/user/ThatcherJoe 

FAVOURITES VIDEOS  

Science vs Philosophy 
https://youtu.be/i0Z6z2UaGiA

Romantic meal with ThatcherJoe 
https://youtu.be/qECL-sFIH6Y

Dare Joe 
https://youtu.be/hwGv98Ef2HI

Documentary on Stephen Hawking 
https://youtu.be/hi8jMRMsEJo

Honey Badgers by Vlogbrothers 
Watch the video here

THE IMITATION GAME

I firmly agree that Eddie Redmayne should have won the Oscar for Best Actor this year but I watched The Imitation Game recently and it was amazing! For some reason, Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of Alan Turing, especially when he didn't understand a joke or why it was important that people liked him, reminded me of Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. It is a really serious film, I mean, on the really serious topics of the war and the illegality of homosexuality but it also is surprisingly amusing at times. Keira Knightley is also one of my favourite actresses of all time and she is also in the film. I know that I am behind in watching that film but I missed it in the cinema and have not had a lot of time to watch films recently. But my sister and I bought it for our dad for Father's Day and so now we have the DVD. Yay! 

FERRERO ROCHER
When people ask me what my favourite chocolate is, I always say I don't know because I love all chocolate. But, recently, I have been thinking about it and I don't like Aero, becuase I don't really like mint or bubbly chocolate but I love Ferrero Rocher.  My favourite are the original and not the dark chocolate or white chocolate/coconut ones. For those that might not know, they are balls of wafer that are coated in a mixture of hazelnut and chocolate and inside there is a whole hazelnut and something that tastes like Nutella. (It is a lot tastier than I have just described that.)

FAVOURITE FACT OF JUNE

I got this from my chemistry textbook when revising for my exam so I don't know how accurate it is because you know, education system and all that but anyway 

Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) is used in soap making and if you put it on your skin, your skin will feel soapy. That is because it is reacting with the fats in your skin and, in essence, turning you into soap!!!

FAVOURITE SONGS

Young and Beautiful by Lana Del Ray 
Summertime Sadness by Lana Del Ray 

Total Eclipse of the Heart by Bonnie Tyler 

Diamonds by Rihanna 

The Winner takes it all by Abba 

Lucky by Britney Spears

Superluv by Shane Dawson 

As seen by this list, I don't really have a favourite genre but my favourite singers are, and will be for all time, Florence and the Machine and Sia and some little bands, like Imagine Dragons and One Republic. But these were the most played on my 'most played' list and I think Young and Beautiful was at the top. It is such an awesome song. (I was going to say beautiful,but that is in the title.) It is so peaceful and soothing and the lyrics actually mean something so that is great. By the way, I am really bad at listening to music because I over listen to too many songs which means that after a few weeks, I do not like them anymore. So this list will change dramatically over time. 



Okay, now I am just going to jump on the band wagon and do my favourite things that are hair/makeup/clothing related. But it is only a few! :) 

COW GIRL HAIRSTYLE 
I am not exactly sure what the name of this hairstyle is but 'Cow Girl' has stuck. Now, I watched a video a while back by Youtuber Zoella and she was showing people how to do this hairstyle. But Zoella has beautiful, long, straight hair and I have curly and extremely puffy/curly hair. So I didn't think that it would work for my hair. But then I saw another YouTuber PyschoSoprano doing it in her hair and hers is more similar to mine and so I tried it and it worked! The bad thing is that it makes my small head look even smaller but it looks really cute...well, I think so, at least. I don't know how to describe it really, except that it involves an Alice band and bobby pins and shoving all of your hair into the back of the Alice band. However, I'll put both video links here so that you can watch both of them. 
Watch Zoella's video here
Watch PyschoSoprano's video here

CONVERSES
These are my favourite shoes. I am really not a fan of fancy shoes, like high heels because they really hurt my feet and after a day of walking around in them, my back really starts to hurt. (I have a pretty poor spine.) And these converses are really comfortable and I have worn them so much that they know the shape of my foot so it feels like a hug. From a shoe. They are quite old now, I think but I got them in Sports Direct for £2.00 or something reduced from £8.99 like that because the store was closing down and there was a sale so they were really cheap. And they have lasted for ages. They are not the real deal but they look like it so who cares? I have had to wear a lot of uncomfortable shoes recently so it is really nice to just wear them again now that I am on holiday. 

GREEN EYELINER  

BLACK KOHL PENCIL

These are my favourite two 'eye' pencils. I use it under my eye rather than over my eye because I personally think it looks a lot nicer, as long as you properly smudge and don't have a really thick line. The green is by Rimmel and the black is by Bourjois Paris and they are both available at Superdrug. I also have not quite mastered the straight line on the eyelid and because I wear big glasses, all mistakes are magnified. So...I'm working on that. 

THIS IS WHAT AWESOME LOOKS LIKE T-shirt 

At the end of every one of my blog posts, I write 'Be Awesome' because Awesome is my favourite word in the English language. I say that because there are words in other languages that I prefer the sound of but anyway...getting away from the point. So, when I saw this shirt in Primark, I thought YES! I don't care how much it is. I have to have that shirt. Also, it is really comfortable to wear in the summer because it is light and quite baggy (although I am a tiny person so maybe that is just me) and it covers your shoulders and neck really well so that you don't get too badly burned. And look at the Snoopy Dog! So cute.  

Anyway, that is it for this post. I really hope you enjoyed it and it made you smile a bit or something :). I think the next post will be a book review. I am going on holiday to Spain on Monday so it won't be for a while but I will probably do two or three when I come back.

Clare 
:)

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Hey everyone...

So here is review number two. Yesterday, I finished Still Alice by Lisa Genova.

Before continuing, I,would like to say that this book has a movie adaptation that I would strongly recommend. Julianne Moore won Best Actress for her portrayal of Alice and it really was well deserved.

Anyway, the book... Still Alice tells the story of fifty-one year old Alice, diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. Proteins build up in the brain to form structures called 'plaques' and 'tangles'. This leads to the loss of connections between nerve cells, and eventually to the death of nerve cells and loss of brain tissue. People with Alzheimer's also have a shortage of some important chemicals in their brain that help to transmit important signals and messages around the brain. A shortage means that the signals are not transmitted as effectively. Before reading this book, I knew very little about Alzheimer's and, although this book does not contain excessive factual information (I do not like it when books do contain a lot), I did learn a lot about Alzheimer's through the eyes of Alice, who was suffering with it. Alzheimer's is a terminal illness that breaks down the neurones in the brain that deal with memory.

However, this is not a book about Alzheimer's. It is not overly factual or dry and it does not make you feel pitiful in a negative way. This is a book about Alice and her struggle with the disease. She is a Harvard professor of psychology and she has a husband and three children, Anna, Tom and Lydia. Narrated through her eyes, it is a heart-breaking and beautifully told story of how her life unravels at the hands of this terrible disease. 

Why do I like this book?

This book is heartbreaking but in a way that made me think. Alice was very intelligent and I myself am very nerdy and love to learn new things. Lisa Genova is able to show, very realistically and sympathetically how this terrible illness is causing her to forget everything that she has learnt and, even more terribly, the faces of everyone she loved. Can you imagine waking up and not knowing who your family were? Their faces were still somewhere in your head but you couldn't access them because your neurones had been destroyed.

I think Lisa Genova makes this living with this disease which, thankfully, everyone does not have to do, relatable to everyone who reads it. The author really develops the relationships between the husband and wife and mother and children to show how the disease attacks all parts of Alice's life.

Issues discussed in this book

Obviously, Alzheimer's is one of the issues discussed. To me, before reading Still Alice, Alzheimer's meant very little to me and I knew very little about it. I knew that it was a terminal disease but I had very little knowledge of the effect it had on peoples' lives. It meant the same to me as Parkinson's or Motor Neurone Disease. I could name a few people who had these diseases but I didn't really know anything about them. When someone says, think of a terminal illness, I think of cancer. It is a much bigger issue in my family and therefore, it mattered a lot more to me. After watching the Theory of Everything, I understood the severity of Motor Neurone Disease to a much greater extent. But I think that that a problem. I was learning about these illnesses from a film, instead of being given information about them from my school or from the world in general. Everyone I know, I believe  could name a form of cancer but not everyone could tell me what these other terminal illnesses could do, or even what they are. Let's focus on Alzheimer's. I do believe awareness should be raised about these diseases, to let people know more about them and to understand the severity of what many people have to face. Because I've studied in a good school and I have had a good education and I have never heard Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or even Motor Neurone Disease mentioned in any of my lessons and that is a bad thing. (I've included these three because these I have now researched a bit more but there are lots more.) How can we expect things to change without teaching people about them? 

Recommendations

There are two books that I recommend if you enjoy reading Still Alice. One is This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl and her parents. This book is the story of a girl who suffers from cancer. She died but her parents published her diary of her life, living with it. It is an amazing story and what I love about it is that although it is about cancer, it isn't a cancer book.

And the second book is Black Beauty by Anna Sewell. For those who do not know, Black Beauty is a horse and this book is the story of his life. Let me explain. I think this book is so sweet, for a start but also, through the eyes of Black Beauty, a horse, he accepts all that happens in his life, all the bad owners and the horrible things that happen and I think it is very similar to how Alice accepted what was going to happen in her life.

Okay...well that's it for this post. I am now reading Mercy by Jodi Picoult so that will be my next review. I might do an overall for Jodi Picoult as well because I love her books. I hope this post was interesting and you enjoyed it. Below are the links to buy all the books and also a link I found in the back of Still Alice to donate money to raise awareness for Alzheimer's.

BUY STILL ALICE ON AMAZON

BUY BLACK BEAUTY ON AMAZON

BUY THIS STAR WON'T GO OUT ON AMAZON

DONATE MONEY TO RAISE AWARENESS 

Click on the CALL TO ACTION- Alzheimer's button and donate money.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE HERE 

Be Awesome

Clare

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Hello everyone...

So this is my first review. I read Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and overall, I really enjoyed it. I would recommend it to middle-ish teens and going up as it can be a little disturbing at times because there is domestic abuse. 

It tells the story of a girl called Kambili, living in Nigeria after colonisation. Because of this, there are many political and economic struggles for the people,which results in conflict throughout the novel. Kambili lives with her parents in Enugu. Her father is Catholic, but in a very oppressive and sometimes cruel way, subjecting Kambili and her mother and brother to beatings when they do something that he does not like. The novel is the story of Kambili growing up, told from Kambili's perspective and essentially breaking free from the restrictions that her father has put on her and the restrictions that she has put on herself, trying to live up to her father's expectations. Many themes are explored in the book, such as maturity, sexuality, civil unrest as well as the struggles that a girl faces growing up.

This book was the debut novel of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and it was highly acclaimed, winning the 2004 Hurston/Wright Legacy and the 2005 Commonwealth Writers' Best First Book Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2004. This doesn't always guarantee that a book will be enjoyable for every individual to read but it does mean that many people enjoyed the book. 

Why did I like the book?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (the author) is extremely good at capturing Kambili's thoughts and feelings and relating her struggles to the reader. Kambili faces difficulties that are relatable to all girls and boys growing up and Chimamanda is able to really bring that across in the writing. There is a lot of beautiful description in the book and the storyline is really interesting and developed. Although the first few pages are quite slow, once the story takes off, it really picks up pace and is very gripping until the end.

Issues discussed in the book

One of the main themes running through the book was religion and how it affected the lives of many different people. Kambili's father, Eugene, for instance, is a Catholic but extremely radical, one might say, in his views and practices. He teaches his children that pagans are all going to hell, for instance and he beats them when they do not follow his will, saying that it is because they have been possessed by the devil. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote a small message at the end of the book, saying that she did not want people to see Eugene as the 'villain' but simply someone who did horrible things but was not a horrible man. Eugene uses religion in the wrong way, utilising it not only to pray for himself and his family, but also to influence, in the wrong way, Kambili's ideas of religion and to judge and look down upon those who are not Catholics.

However, Kambili's grandfather, is a heathen, or traditionalist, as he calls himself, worshipping many gods and speaking to his ancestors. Needless to say, Eugene does not approve of this and will not speak to his father and will not help him in his financial distress. However, Kambili notices that her grandfather is not at all the person that Eugene makes him out to be. Although a 'pagan', he understands more about compassion and humility and also seems to be a lot freer in his religion than Eugene who follows a stricter, more accepted religion. (Catholicism).

I personally also believe that the issues of religion that are highlighted in this book are contemporary issues that we can now see in our world today. In the book, people use religion as an excuse to do wrong and today, we can see radicalists and terrorists uniting under a banner of religion in order to do wrong. I believe that there is nothing in any religion that says that killing and/or physical/mental abuse is justified and in this book, these issues are highlighted. 

Recommendations

But of course, this book is not for everyone and therefore, here are some other great books that I have read, that relate to Purple Hibiscus in some way but are also slightly different. 

The Prisoner of the Inquisition by Theresa Breslin. This novel tells of a difficult time for Spain, during the Spanish Inquisition when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were hunting out Muslims and Jews, whom they believed to be heretics and burning/imprisoning them if they did not convert to Christianity. The novel follows the two stories of a poor boy called Saulo and a rich merchant's daughter called Zara. It relates strongly to the oppressive theme of religion in Purple Hibiscus and is also a really great book. 

Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian. This novels tells the story of William Beech, a young boy evacuated to the country during the Second World War. He goes to stay with Tom Oakley. I chose to include this novel because it has an underlying theme of breaking away from oppression and growing up, learning about love and the beautiful things in the world, despite the horror of the Second World War all around them. William Beech's mum is a Christian and does use religion in a similar way to Kambili's father but that is not the overall theme of the book. It has a wonderful ending and I really enjoyed reading it.  

BUY PURPLE HIBISCUS ON AMAZON

BUY GOODNIGHT MISTER TOM ON AMAZON

BUY PRISONER OF THE INQUISITION ON AMAZON

So that's the end of this post. I hope it interested you. I am now reading Still Alice, so hopefully I should review that soon. I
:) 
Thanks for reading,

Clare