#13: Letters From Skye by Jessica Brockmole

This book was on display at my university library. I picked it up out of curiosity, and immediately found myself immersed in the world of David, Elspeth and those around them. There are two main time periods in the book: just before and during World War One, and smack in the middle of World War Two. David and Elspeth, who meet through a series of letters, are shown at alternate stages in their relationship. These fragments, in turn, are pieced with the story of Margaret, Elspeth's daughter, who begins to uncover the story of her mother's great love when she is grown up and nearly ready to have a family of her own.

The main difficulty David and Elspeth face is the distance that separates. This distance changes from time to time as the two characters move from place to place, and peril ensues when David goes off to war after losing his job as a teacher, hoping to make something greater of his life. Elspeth, on the other hand, mostly remains on the Isle of Skye, writing books of poetry, until the strength of David's love changes both of their lives forever.

There are very difficult and sad parts in this book, but Jessica Brockmole writes with such grace and clarity that they seem beautiful. Whether you've had problems with distance in relationships or not, you can still greatly enjoy the story and empathize with its characters, who Brockmole has fleshed out carefully and cleverly. She has done the same for the story in itself, allowing us to envision the various landscapes and situations of the novel so starkly, you feel as though you were reading the book at Place Three in France, or at Elspeth's cottage in Skye.

Overall, Letters from Skye was both surprising and pleasing. I highly recommend it and would definitely read it again.

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#12: Looking for Alaska by John Green

I finished "Looking For Alaska" today at around one in the afternoon in the car on the way to the bus station, knowing I could not take this precious book with me back to college because it had to be returned, so I made every second count and felt myself blown away.

It. Was. Amazing.

Miles Halter is a sixteen year-old seeking more out of life. Tired of his "boring" school friends and the life he leads in general, he goes off to boarding school in search of what he calls a Great Perhaps: the possibility of something new and amazing happening to him. He finds more adventures than he bargained for when he meets his roommate, Chip "The Colonel" Martin, Takumi, Lara and Alaska Young, a beautiful and fascinating young woman he is dying to have. Amidst strict teachers, precalc tests, study sessions at McDonalds and a few pranks, Miles finds what could be his Great Perhaps...and something more.

John Green's prose is pitch perfect in this book, and the messages woven carefully into the next are enough to throw you for a loop, make you question what you thought you knew and then make you want even more. Every object, look, face, detail in the fabric has its own story, its own meaning in the book which goes way beyond what you first imagine.

Because of its poignance and depth, "Looking For Alaska" is now a frontrunner for my new favorite book. It's still sinking in, but I have to say...Never has a book told the parallels of our lives so well.

Even if you are not a sixteen year-old boy at a boarding school in Alabama, you can still identify with other aspects of Green's novel. Personally, the labyrinth of suffering, the love stories and the connection of the Religions class to the final essay, which connected every point in the novel, were some of my favorite things. Those words have stuck with me till today, and hopefully they will stick with you too.

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#11: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

This is my second David Mitchell read, and certainly not my last. I finished it this morning with great anticipation, and was not left unsatisfied.

Cloud Atlas is not your typical fiction novel. There are six different stories in the book, all intertwined and divided up. While I love the way Mitchell's novel is sort of like a puzzle, it can be a little confusing at times. For example, I was close to page 40 of the book (The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing) when one of his entries ended and a completely different section of the book started (Letters from Zedelghem). Although this intrigued me, it took me several pages of the next section to fully understand what the author was trying to do-connect Adam Ewing to Robert Frobisher, the writer of these letters-and how he was trying to do it.

Surprisingly, an entry that at first seemed bewildering, Sloosha's Crossin' An' Ev'rythin' After, turned out to be one of my favorites. The particular language of this section caught my attention from the start: since it is narrated by a semi-uneducated man living on a tropical isle, Zachry, the grammar and pronunciation of his words are odd and at times difficult to understand. I did notice, however, a similarity to the way Black Swan Green, a later novel of Mitchell's, is written while reading Zachry's narration. There were some similarities in Timothy Cavendish's narration (The Ghastly Ordeal of Timothy Cavendish) as well, since Timothy is an authentic Englishman and speaks as one would expect an authentic Englishman too.

Going back to Sloosha's Crossin', I was able to see a sort of transformation in Zachry, different from the ones I saw in other characters. When he first started narrating, I disliked Zachry. I couldn't understand why he'd purposefully let a savage Indian tribe kill his father and brother, and I disliked the way he treated Meronym, a woman from another island, while she was staying in his home.

However, there were distinctive moments of clarity which made the transformation progress and helped me gain a better understanding of what was going on with Zachry and the novel in its whole. For example, Zachry describes how he'd fallen in love with a girl and planned to marry her, but after their first child was stillborn, she'd left him for someone else. This shows how Zachry hardened up and did not perceive love in the same way from that point onward. In addition, when his younger sister Catkin is dying, Zachry confesses some of his darkest secrets to Meronym, desperate and overwhelmed, and in turn Meronym is able to find a way to help Catkin, which makes Zachry respect her more.

One of this book's most fascinating and important details is a comet birthmark. It is one of the main connecting elements of the novel, which brings the six stories together. The fact that Mitchell uses a comet feels symbolic; a comet is cosmic, brilliant and often short-lived, just like a single human life when compared to the infinite time span that stretches before us. The comet birthmark also bears a similarity to Mitchell's references to clouds in the sky being like souls crossing the sea of time, thus tying in the title to the story lines.

All in all, this book was amazing. Despite some difficulties reading it, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would love to read it again. I recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good adventure story or a novel that is "different" from the conventional. Boy or girl, young or old, you are sure to greatly enjoy it.



Check out my other blog: cjustuswriterintro.blogspot.com

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#10: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Where to begin? I've been looking to review this book since the creation of this blog, but I've been looking for the right words to say about it, because this book deserves an excellent review. And that is what I am going to give it.

In a city divided into factions according to different ideologies, Beatrice Prior feels out of place in her family and the world around her. At school she is made fun of because she is from Abnegation, a faction which values selflessness, and other peers call her a 'Stiff'. But Beatrice doesn't feel selfless, especially when she compares herself to her brother, Caleb, who constantly exhibits the qualities Abnegation parents want their children to have.

One day, a special test tells Beatrice that she is Divergent, meaning that she has aptitude for three different factions-Abnegation, Erudite and Dauntless-, something very rare and, as she is told, 'dangerous'. When she decides to leave Abnegation and join Dauntless, Beatrice, now called Tris, learns more about what she is, what she truly believes in and what kind of life she wants to lead.

What I especially love about this book is that it focuses on what it's like to be 'different'; in this case, Divergent. Tris shows what it is like for her to feel and be different from everyone else, while being judged according to both her old faction and her 'special' aptitudes, skills which secretly come from her Divergence and place her in a different category from her fellow initiates, though they hardly realize it. The author, Veronica Roth, portrays being Divergent, or being different, as something good, which gives the book a really nice feel.

Another thing I love is the portrayal of fear. As part of her initiation in the faction of Dauntless, Tris must go through a series of realistic simulations in which she must face her own fears. During her first few simulations, Tris calms herself down by telling herself that it is only an illusion, which allows her to get through the simulations much faster than the other initiates. The idea that our fears are illusions is actually a fascinating, spiritual idea, supported in books such as The Alchemist. -"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure."During initiation, Tris must get past her fears in order to become an official member of Dauntless, which prompts me to ask a question:

Don't we need to get over our fears in order to get to where we really want to be in life?

Divergent is fast-paced, entertaining, deep and meaningful. It will have you hooked from page one until the very end, making it an unforgettable novel which is worth reading again and again.




Be sure to check out my other blog: cjustuswriterintro.blogspot.com

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#9: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

To be honest, I am guilty of doing movie before book on this one. However, over a year passed between the time I saw the movie and read the book, so I didn't remember a lot when I picked it up. Plus, I found, as I went along, that there was a lot of great content I didn't even remember seeing in the movie (Bad memory? Or too much censoring on the in-flight entertainment? Hahaha) and was surprised and pleased as I went along. That being said, here is what I love about this book:

The protagonist of this book, Charlie, is one of the sweetest, most lovable, sincere and down to Earth book characters I have ever come in contact with. With every page, I only wished more that he was an actual person and not a creation of Stephen Chbosky's imagination (although I know there are people similar to him in spirit, some of which I know, and for that I am grateful.), flaws and all. Charlie narrates the story in a series of letters he is writing to an unnamed "Friend", for whom he expresses a deep trust. But really, it feels as though Charlie is talking to YOU, the reader, telling YOU in person about his experiences.

Charlie is an introvert who longs to survive high school. Not long into his freshmen year, he kindles a friendship with two seniors, Patrick and Sam, who become very near and dear to him. They show Charlie the different ins and outs of high school, and teach him lessons schoolbooks cannot. Charlie grows, physically and mentally, and learns to come to terms with the more difficult aspects of life-the ones that most people, especially introverts, want to run and hide from-and gain a deeper perspective and understanding.

I saw this book on a list of "challenged" books once, and I can see why. There are some drugs, sexual content and allusions to mental/psychological issues. However, these do not make the story any less compelling. If anything, I think we should take the time to question ourselves about such things in our society. If I had known from before that this had been a "banned" book and decided to stay away from it, I would've missed out on a story that impacted me hugely. As a fellow introvert, I still think of Charlie and his story from time to time, and ask myself when I am going to pick up that book again.

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#8: The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

As far as inspiration goes, it's pretty hard (if not impossible) to top "The Glass Castle". This is a memoir unlike any you have ever read. It is one of those books that will keep you up at night, whether it's reading the next chapter or just thinking about what you've already read.

Jeannette Walls had a far from easy childhood. Her first memory is of catching her dress on fire while cooking hot dogs in the family's trailer. She was just three years old. Her parents took her to the hospital, but her father checked her out "Rex Walls style" (secretly) before she was ready to come home.

Things did not go any more smoothly from there. Her family moved from one town to another, always careful to avoid tax collectors and other officials who could put Rex and Rosemary (her mother) in jail or take their kids away from them. Jeannette was raped and nearly shot while living in one small town and bullied for most of her childhood, due to her family's poverty, her physical appearance and, on a few occasions, for doing well at school.

Her biggest supporters throughout her childhood were her siblings: Lori, Brian and Maureen. However, Lori and Brian also went through their own shares of bullying, and Maureen, although more sheltered by friends, was not immune to the problems her siblings went to at school and at home. Their father was an alcoholic who couldn't keep a stable job for more than a few months. He would sometimes exhibit violence towards their mother, an artist who dedicated more time to her artwork than to her children. She struggled to be a successful artist but refused to use her teaching degree to put food on the table. The logic she used was along the lines of: "Why spend an hour making a meal that will be gone in minutes, when I can make a painting that will last forever?"

However, in spite of all her struggles, Jeannette was able to triumph, both career-wise and in character. For example, while living in Welch, West Virginia, she was able to make friends with a girl who once bullied her by helping her little brother escape from danger and, subsequently, aiding the former bully in schoolwork. Jeannette also helped her sister Lori escape to New York, but was never one to avoid helping around the house. She created a family budget while her mother was away working in order to help properly feed her family, and even tried to make their run-down house in Welch look nicer by painting it. But once she left that life behind, her success only continued to grow as she graduated with honors from college and became a successful writer.

All in all, it's a fantastic book that deserves to be read over and over again. If you ever feel like there are obstacles in your life that can't be surpassed, that your circumstances are blocking you from a brighter future, or you are simply looking for a source of inspiration, then you should read this book. You'll be grateful that you did.




Also check out my other blog: cjustuswriterintro.blogspot.com

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#7: Sisterhood Everlasting by Ann Brashares

I finished this book just over a week ago and have been planning to write a review for it since. If you are a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants fan, this book should be on your to-read list (if you haven't already devoured it, that is.).

Ten years after their wonderful vacation in Santorini, the four "sisters" (Carmen, Lena, Bridget and Tibby) are distanced from each other. Sure, they all saw each other at Carmen's big celebration at the bar...but that was two years ago. They are each living their own separate lives; Carmen is a TV actress in New York with an iPhone, makeovers and a massively packed agenda; Lena teaches art classes and lives in a tiny apartment in Providence; Bridget lives in California with her boyfriend Eric; and Tibby has moved to Australia with her boyfriend Brian, but she becomes even more uncommunicative with her friends the longer she stays in Australia.

Finally, Lena, Carmen and Bridget all receive letters from Tibby containing plane tickets and letters stating that they will reunite in Santorini in October. They all know how excited they are to get there and how much their friendship means to each other, but none of them know how much this trip, and some future letters, will change their lives.

There is tragedy, heartbreak, bitterness and sadness, but also compassion, empathy, kindness and the joy that only true friendship can bring. Each page will have you more gripped than the next one as you seek to learn what becomes of these sisters, their love interests, their passions and their friendship.

It's a great read, very well-written and absolutely perfectly planned. If you couldn't get enough of the other books, this one will surely satisfy your thirst. Just keep a tissue box nearby, just in case.

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