So, I know I haven't posted in a while, but it was Halloween and we had a small break so I met up with friends and wasn't home much, so there really wasn't much time to post anything. But anyway, today's review is about the Gemma Doyle trilogy and I'd honestly like to say that this trilogy kept me enthralled from beginning to end, although I must admit that one of my favourite things about it was the Q&A with the author, it was so funny it had me stuffing my pillow in my mouth to stifle the irrepressible giggles coming out at midnight when I was supposed to be sleeping... I personally think this book was really amusing and witty, and there was such a stark contrast when compared to the typical teenager books for girls where they all talk about boyfriends and makeup and all that... I'll admit that this book does talk about love, but its very differently written to the usual "OMG I have a crush on ____________ and he's so good-looking and hot, right?!" It's not like that at all. It could be considered desire more than love, really, but it's definitely not the shallow kind of love I demonstrated in the example, it's quite different... I'm pretty sure if you've read up to here you are not a boy, because this is quite a girlish trilogy and I'm quite sure not many boys would be interested in this. Really, you can probably tell I like this kind of book, because apart from the romance and all that there is also magic, and social division between the classes, and it is written in the perspective of a young 16 year old living in England during the Victorian period. Yes, that's right, the Victorian period. It really is quite interesting to read what modern day people presume Victorian girls thought like (because this is quite a recent trilogy; I think the first book was published in the early 2000's? Okay, I checked, it's 2003, so I was round about right...) and really, they were only girls, same as I am now, but their lives were quite different to ours. What if they were different too? What if the mind of a human teenager has changed and evolved over the centuries? What if the mentality of girls in the, say, 1600's, were completely the opposite to the way the average teen girl thinks and feels? Right, I'm getting a bit off topic now, so back to the book we go. As I was saying, it's interesting to read books set in different time periods because we get to experience the world differently, and we might even start seeing some thing in a totally different light. Like school, for example. I know most children don´t like school and say it's boring, and some might even say that girls in the olden days were lucky not to go to school, that it's not fair and they would have preferred life like that, but then when they grew up they would have liked having their independence and own jobs and not have to rely too much on anyone else. Well, it's just like that famous Spiderman quote: If you want to have rights and rewards and freedom and independence and power, you need to work for it. and start earning those luxuries. That's partly what school is for: to help you accept responsibility. So really, school could be looked upon as a good thing, for if we didn't go to school and had all the privileges, then that would make the world a horrible place to live in, so I'm just saying, thank the goods you have school :). Where did that come from? No idea. Well, one of the points I wanted to focus on (SPOILER ALERT: skip to the bold red words and continue reading from there if you really don't want a spoiler, but this is a very light introduction of some characters and really shouldn't spoil anything in the book, but if you really want to skip it...) was the friendship between four of the main characters: Gemma, Pippa, Ann and Felicity. These four girls have very different lives, and this is where the social divide comes in. Ann, you see, is a scholarship student that spends her life wishing to be rescued from her future as a nurse to her rich cousin's young children, as she is in their debt for paying the expenses of her boarding school so she would be trained to be an adequate companion for their children. Gemma's family, on the contrary, belong to the high-ish society of London, and so her station in life is to be, no doubt, a pleasant one. Pippa, although belonging to a family of merchants, is very rich, and Felicity's father is a famous naval hero at the time. These girls lives have been very different, and so it is surprising that they become friends, for they all are as different as chalk and cheese, and share neither hopes, nor dreams, nor sorrows. Each girl's past is unique and different, and all they share in common is the wish to be free. This makes their friendship interesting and unique, even though sometimes a chasm opens up and isolates one of them because of an experience the others cannot relate to, and it can seem like a rather shallow friendship at times. END OF SPOILER: continue reading from here One last thing before I finish. The ending. Endings always fascinate me, for sometimes the story gets so complicated that I wonder how the author will pull the end off. Will they give it the ending it deserves, or a simple one, or a much more complicated one that was necessary, or a very vague and shallow one, or what? Those are questions to ponder when you think the book is an intricate story that will need a lot of knot-tying to finish it off properly- unless it's a cliffhanger, but I generally find those when the author intends to write a sequel, and though it can give a nice effect if used correctly, sometimes they might do that because it's easier to leave the reader in suspense rather than go back and tie all the loose threads together so that the reader can fully comprehend the story. Not that I'm implying Libba Bray did that. Certainly not. Although there was still a sense of mystery surrounding the end of the trilogy, I think it was the perfect combination of suspense and compiling everything together. Really, if a little sad, it was fantastic, with just the right amount of vagueness so as to allow the reader the chance of fantasizing about what happens next, but also enough information to leave your mind at rest and to make the book feel finished, and I just really enjoyed reading this trilogy so much, so I hope you do too.
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I'm not sure if you've read E. Nesbit's "Five Children and It", but if you have, you should know that this book, although written by Kate Saunders, continues the story of the five children Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane and the Lamb, with the addition of a younger sister named Edie (short for Edith). This book was so sad, but is was so funny too! It was a very nice mixture of humour and a bit of tragedy, with a beautiful storyline and characters very similar to E. Nesbit's original ones. I would have reviewed the other books (There are three: Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet), but I read those a long time ago and I happened to stumble on this book when I was in a library and I have just finished it, and I thought it would be great to review it while it was still fresh in my mind. Although I haven't read "The Story of the Amulet" yet, I have read the other two books, and I think they are both absolutely fantastic. Therefore, this post is about all four E. Nesbit books, and I really hope you like them all because they are excellent books.
The story is set ten years after the original books, during World War I. The four children are grown up now, and Cyril is a Lieutenant during the war, Anthea is at art college, Robert studies at Cambridge University and Jane is still at high school, whilst the now 11 year old Lamb and 9 year old Edie are at school too. The Lamb and Edie find the Psammead (the Sand Fairy) lost and powerless in the old gravel pit at the botto m of their garden. And all 6 children have to help the Sand Fairy find back his powers ... I think I already posted an entry on a book by Michael Morpurgo. The truth is, I think he is great author, but he is rather dismal and always talks about war and death in his books. Even so, I really like his books, I think they're interesting and fun, but kind of sad. Why the Whales came is a fantastic book, I really liked the storyline and they way it was written. It was rather dark, but a great read too.
Gracie and Daniel live on the Scilly Islands, but Rushy Bay is forbidden territory for them, because the Birdman lives there, and the islanders say he is evil. But one day Gracie and Daniel venture to the bay, and find a mysterious message on the sand... And then, when a curse is brought upon Bryher by the children, only the Birdman can help... Ok, this is probably going to be the shortest post yet, because it is a general view on a series, not on a specific book. My previous post was about The Hunger, a book from the collection My Story. I really like this collection, and after reading a few more, instead of just writing a review for each, I´m just going to summarise it up. It is a great collection, fun, rather sad and awesome. So I recommend them to you. Most are about girls, although there are about 6 or 7 that are about boys (or maybe more; I didn't bother counting them). Anyway, they're a great read and I hope you like them. There are still a few more books in this series, only I couldn't find a picture which included them all.
I really think this set of books is really interesting, because they are historical, but they're not boring. I like them a lot, personally. I think its a great way to study a bit of history, and even if the stories are not true they sound true. I really think you should try this collection, because they are really cool.
Some are about the Black Death, some are about the Tudors, some about the World Wars, some are about the queens of different places, and this one in particular is about the Irish Potato Blight in 1845. They are written in first person and really take into account the writer's feelings. They are quite realistic, and rather sad in all, because the life they generally write about was rough and hard. I really think children, especially 11-14 year olds, should read these books because they are interesting, fun and educational. The Irish Potato Blight has just broke out, and supplies are running short. Ireland is starving and poor, whilst the British Government lean back and turn a blind eye towards the devastating events in the Emerald island. Phyllis McCormack is young girl of fourteen who has just received a diary for her birthday, where she records her life during the Potato Blight... This book was so sad, and yet so amazing. Tommo's story is beautifully written, sad and, though fictional, quite realistic when it concerns the events that happened during World War l. I quite cried, not only because of the deaths, but because of the injustice of things. Somethings were just done so unfairly I could not believe those events were real. I was stunned. I hope you will read this book, not only to enjoy it, but also to learn about the injustice of life during WWI.
Tommo is in the war, waiting for his terrible fate to arrive. He has a night until his end will come. That night he will spend remembering his childhood, his life as it was before the war with his brothers Charlie and Big Joe, his mother and Molly, his friend. He remembers his life, both the good and the bad moments in it. His last night is spent in remembrance of everything he knew as home, everything he know he will never see again. |
AuthorCarolina (or Carol for short), a girl who adores to read. A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The person who never reads lives only one. Categories
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