Son - Lois Lowry

I'm not a fan of dystopian society based books, I haven't even read Divergent but there are exceptions to every dislike. I have a "list" that comprises of two dystopian society books that I like which are both by Lois Lowry; messenger and Gathering Blue. And now that "list" is expanding by one more book, Son, the conclusion to The Giver. Why isn't The Giver on my list? The ending was too disappointing to me to be on my list but Son makes up for it greatly giving more backstory on Abe and the story if what Noah in countered on his run away from the society.
To give people a refresher on who Abe and Noah are (if you have not read The Giver stop here and go read it and then come back), Abe is the weak baby that Noah's family was taking care of during the night. Noah was the main protagonist of the book and was chosen at the age of 12 ceremonies to become the next giver which allowed him to learn about what life was like before the current society. At the end of The Giver Noah take s Abe with him and runs away from the society with the final scene being that they saw pretty colors. Yah, after all that build up, the story ends with they saw pretty colors. Can you understand my disappointment?
However Son makes up for that like I stated earlier. The way that Lowry begins the conclusion is very interesting because she introduces a new character  Claire who was a birth mother and explains her first pregnancy and doesn't reveal who's the baby until couple chapters later. The story then continues in Claire's points of view until we finally meet Noah again and learn finally what happened to him after the The Giver.
This can be a difficult book to understand if you don't read The Giver so it is for your own good if you read that book first so you can completely enjoy Son and feel satisfied  and filled after  learning what happened to Noah and Abe.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13324841-son

That is a link to a goodreads summary about Son, so if you want some more back story click on the link!

The Favored Child

I am a history buff, specifically Europe's Monarchy hisory buff. No, wait let me be a little more specific. I'm a stalker of  England's historical monarchs. I'm not that crazy stalker that digs up the graves to see their skeletons, I'm the kind of stalker that reads every book possible that I can understand about the nobility and write blog posts about them. I'm that sort of stalker.

The current book that I am reading is by one of my favorite author of the Tudor period. The Tudor house is the one with King Henry VIII, you know the guy that had six wives that all died except for one. The book so far is about two cousins, one named Richard and one named Julia and are both part of the Lacey family. At the age of 8 they both expect to marry each other which is sorta cute and wierd but it's child play right? They both live together at Wideacre estate, which is bankrupt by the way, and are surrounded by the so called rumour of the "Favored Child".

You see, before they were born a woman named Beatrice held the land in her hand, she made crops grow, storms brew and was able to tame horses and other animals in seconds. She died as a crazy person who was believed to be a witch and had the so called mystical powers of sight and had tricked the devil to get them. Fast forward to current time, villagers are looking at both of the cousins wondering "Who's the Favored Child? Who got Beatric's powers? Who is the true Lacey?" and based on what I had currently read I have a solid bet its Julia becuase Richard is terrible with animals and is a crued heartless person.

What makes Richard so cruel is his need to be number one in the family. His need to be number one is consuming him to the point that he will do anything to destroy what gets in his way. He killed a horse that Julia was able to tame before he was able to, he hit Julia with a crop mulitple times for riding a horse before he was able to master it and to remind you he was 10, a child. He is a cruel heartless person and I hope Julia wakes up and fights him before it gets so far.

This part of the story began to remind me of a youtube video that was posted on women's day. It was about the world through a woman's eyes, it started off cute and sweet like the book and by the end, I was completly horrified. It makes me wonder if the intention of the book was not to inform about the history of Widacre, but instead a call to the world about the violence that women indured at that time and how it hasn't changed, just silenced. I never really paid any attention to women's day before and I thought it was just a feminist thing, but it's not. Maybe I'm taking the story too far, maybe not, I don't know but my view of the author really changed after just the first few chapters that I might think a little bit more about current social issues.

My Favorite Book

My favorite book so far this school year is the one I started in 2nd trimester. The book is called Lady of the Rivers by Phillipa Gregory. When I began reading into her series of books, I had just finished reading a book by one of my other favorite authors, Dan Brown, and I need something else to read while anticipating a new book. So my grandmother have me Lady of the Rivers as something to try until his new book came to retail stores. One of my favorite genre is historical fiction which was the genre that Phillipa Gregory'a book was so I had no difficulty starting the book. Then continuing to read it was another problem.
        At the time I was enjoying online fanfiction stories that my friends and other people would type on Quotev, instead of books that authors would write. Surprisingly thought, I found myself enjoying the book as much as enjoyed reading Dan Brown's books. So the time I spent reading online decreased which meant my parents were celebrating that no longer hog the computer as much ( I still play Minecraft, that will not change Dad) and spent that time reading a book.  I now know that Dan Brown's new book has came out  which is called Inferno. I am planning to read that book very soon or as soon as the library list clears up. Until then I think I will continue reading The Red Queen which  is about another persons view in The Lady of the River  and keep that book as my favorite so far this school year for introducing me to another series to keep me occupied.

The Red Queen Philippa Gregory - Explain the Reason for Reading the Book

In a earlier post of mine, I had finished reading Lady of the Rivers, which was about Japquetta and her journey through the Royal Court of England and the people she met. One of the people she met was Queen Margaret, who was married to the King while she was in court. The Red Queen, is about Margaret and her journey to the English court with a backround of French. When I read the Lady of the Rivers, Margaret was introduced later in the book so I did not get to know that much about her past and that only she was desperate for an heir to continue the throne in her name.

Li Cunxin Mao's Last Dancer

"Mao's Last Dancer" is a auto-biography that Li Cuxin wrote. The begining setting of the book is the country side of China during Dictator Mao's reign. Li lived with his entire family and his extended family as well. His family lives in near poverty, starving nearly every day while being taught in class that Mao  has done greatness to China and that no one would be hungery, but as he soon becomes to realize his entire village was starving. The main conflict begins to occur when he is chosen along with 10 other children to attend the Beijing Dance Academy which the second main setting of the book. He was sent there to learn ballet and other folk dancing to bring honour to China under Mao's name. As he lives at the academy he struggles to understand the manderin dialect and to understand dance. During this time he pushes his body to the limit and pushs himself in studies to help his family. Eventually he gets the rare chance to go to America and perform which was nearly impossible because you need the dictator's permission to go.

Gregory Maguire Wicked

         Elphaba is the main character of the novel "Wicked". If you haven't seen Broadway or read the book she's more known as the Wicked Witch of the West from the famous movie/book "The Wizard of OZ". In the movie/book all that was told about her was that she was the villain and water causes her to melt. So L. Frank Baum never really gave her a back story where the audience could really understand what was going on in Elphaba's mind when she attacks Dorathy.

           So before reading "Wicked" I never liked the Wicked Witch, I thought she was like all the other villains in movies, just there for confict and didn't have a beginning or a reason, she's just there. Than again there were some questions that I wished to know the answer of at the end of the movie. Why's her skin green? Did she have a family like her? Was she always this person? Well, while I was reading "Wicked" I found out a lot of answers to these questions which made me feel like watching the movie again to make sure that all the answers made sense.

             For the question about her skin it turns out she was born green while neither of her parents were green, but apparently Elphaba was born on a very peculiar day. Which the author may be suggesting that maybe some unknown force or some sort of Munchkinlander folklore caused this to happen to her. On the topic of her physical odds it turns out that from the day she was born she hated water in general and to cope with that she used coconut oil so her skin didn't dehydrate.

            Her mother and her father were part of a missionary to the country side. Both knew that their daughter was odd but they kept her and had the mother's old nanny help with the upbringing. Elphaba also had a little half sister that was related to her through her mother ( you will have to read the book for this), and she had no arms but her skin tone was normal and she was considered pretty. When reading about her childhood I noticed that she didn't fair well with other children and her parents didn't even try to get her to interact with others which I found interesting. Seeing that Elphaba 's older self was living alone in a giant castle with monkey guards.

           At one point in the book Elphaba is sent to a boarding school where she meets Glinda, which was actually being pretty snobby at this age in my opinion. Once settling down Elphaba makes some aquetances but not anyone that she would really talk to. Showing that she already didn't like to socialize very much. 

          Reading "Wicked" did not exactly do what I thought it was trying to do. Which was get me to symphasize with the main character but it didn't, it allowed me to be more informed of her allowing me to understand a bit more of Elphaba's actions in the movie. Instead it made me admire L. Frank Baum for his ability to make villain that you had to imagine what thierry beginning was like.


           

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

In the first 50 pages of this book I have come to understand the main character's basic thoughts, actions and life. Using the knowledge that I know he is confused about his Grand Father's last words about betraying his people durring the Civil War and how that relates to him. I also know that his actions in the boxing ring and his desicions when reading his speech to say "social equality" instead of "Social Responsibility" had him understand that he had to be more carefull when reading in front of other people. I also know that he is African American and how he is seen in society. So because all of these things I know, I can guess that he is eventually going to do an action that has him infront of scores of peolple, whither it to do a speech or do a violent act or a peaceful protest, so he can help stop segregation and make racisim and descrimination less powerful. In the first chapter he presents a speech to powerful white buisness men that live in his area and becuase his first act against segregation is during that speech it makes me think that he is going to use more of a peaceful approach to spread his ideas rather than a violent act.