Sty of Books

I definitely liked the concept of the book. The writing is fast pace with a plot that never seems to take a breather. The actual style of writing is very nice since the word usage aligns with the time period and genre, but the stereotypical characters are extremely annoying. This book is a feminist nightmare. It explores the idea of "manhood" through violence and sexual attraction from women.The depiction of women kills the story for me. Almost all of the women in the book are shown as sexual objects, in which they lick their lips to show sexual interest in men. They're kidnapped and raped. All of them bare their bodies in some way or fashion. Even women who work with the men sexualize themselves. /begin sarcasm/ Of course, the main character gets more than one woman interested in him. He's a man after all. /end sarcasm/ It's books like this one that add to the perpetuation of rape culture. Not all women should be shown as whores or as an object to rape. Even Lauze, a woman who helps save the boat, sexualizes herself for men. It's utterly annoying and disgusting. Women have more power and skills than just sexualizing themselves for men.

I had mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, I couldn't put it down and kept reading chapter after chapter, staying up until 4 A.M. to finish it. On the other hand, the main character's actions were disappointing. Most of the younger characters start out as something different; they're rambunctious, active, and playful, but later they just turn into stereotypical old people, especially Lily, the main character.The hardships of the girls kept me turning the pages. Some of their problems, such as foot binding, are gruesome. Their flight to avoid war also adds to the tension and page turning aspect of the story. However, Lily can be a pain sometimes. She seems to close herself off from the world and become shallow, sticking to tradition although her laotong, Snow Flower, strives to create her own path within the traditional structure. Part of me had to put away my 21st century view of women to deal with this story. The two girls couldn't do much to control their own fates, and historically, that's the way women were treated. I think Lisa See does a great job with the historical elements and not breaking her character's point-of-view. However, that's also the downside of the story. When the character does have a break through, it tends to be small, weak ones as if there's nothing Lily can do to change the past or take hold of the future. She does do a few things to change and control her children's future, but it's as if she gives up on making her life better, just like her mother does when Lily is little. Some of the character's development tends to be superficial. Snow Flower is probably my favorite character because she tends to be a bit more unconventional, and she stands up for herself by forming friendships with other women when her laotong doesn't treat her kindly.It's a good quick light read, and I'd recommend it for people interested in historical Chinese stories.

One of Gazel's guests is murdered, and so he must fight to fix the wrongs according to his ancestor's ways. His journey takes him from the middle of the Sahara Desert to a wasteland from which no one returns to a foreign city beside the sea. In this story, tradition clashes with the modern life as good intentions clash with corruption. Upholding either law only seems to add to the chaos of Gazel's solitary war.Gazel is a hero with a flaw, which of course makes this story a tragedy. He has a lot of persistence and resourceful skills. His presence makes the book fun to read. The other characters definitely add to the color of the story. There are Gazel's foil, the ultimate bad guy, the nice guy just following orders, and then pawns of the military. Ultimately, independence and remaining faithful to your values permeates this story. I don't necessarily agree with the treatment of some of the characters, but that's probably because I'm not used to the Tuaregs' culture. The story was translated from Spanish, but it's still well written. It flows very well, but unfortunately, it doesn't have any chapter markers. Every now and then, there are breaks in between the storyline and perspective changes. Some of the perspective changes are confusing because the chapter starts with "he" rather than a name. Grammar mistakes can be found in the book; there are a few missing verbs and common problems.I found this book on Goodreads and downloaded a PDF version.

The theme of the story is definitely interesting and reminds me of the time I spent in high school at a boarding school. I really liked the beginning of the story and could relate to it rather well. However, the middle and ending are rather chunky with lots of ands.

Overall, the message of the story is that people learn languages according to different cognitive styles in different situations. The book is very dense and somewhat hard to read since lots of information is just thrown at you. If you really want to read this, then I suggest you keep a pen and paper or a highlight nearby to take notes.The authors use lots of scientific and linguistic jargon, which makes this book a bit inaccessible to everyday readers. It's not a "pop psych" book. They definitely know what they're talking about since they mention most of the major studies done on second language acquisition. Long story short, the book contains a lot of useful information, but it may be hard for an average, non-scientific and/or non-linguistic, person to read.For example, beforehand, I read some of the research studies that they quote, so I knew what they were talking about most of the time, but I have no linguistic background. When they delve deeper into the nitty-gritty linguistic terms, it takes a lot of processing to keep things straight.

If I have to read about a Southern "drawl" again, I will flip, and it will not be a good flip. It will be a "I'm going to strangle this book!" flip. Please, all authors everywhere, stop calling it a DRAWL or a TWANG. Instead, why don't you use descriptive words like deep throaty vowels and heavy r's? Anyway, to the meat of the story--I thought it was ok. Sometimes it seems like the characters are pretty flat with a little bit of roundness in a few of them. I also think the author tries to use stereotypical "Southern" characters for Jackson's sisters because obviously almost all Southern women are great at planning and are awesome hostess with connections to everyone on the social scene. There were a good number of loop holes, and the plot just conveniently falls into place because God willed it so (sarcasm intended). It becomes pretty annoying when characters just waltz into rooms at the right moments. I know it's contemporary fiction, but even in real-life we don't always manage to enter at the right time that often.I thought the recipes and little tidbits at the end of the story were interesting. It sort of pulls the reader into the story a little bit more. Also on another good note, the God tidbits don't protrude as much as other Christian romances, but I thought the author obviously controls the story a bit too much with the characters mentioning the typical romantic advice when it comes to men and relationships. It's sorta disappointing to know that women just put up with men's drawing back. Emma kinda fights against Jackson's pulling back, but other women tell her that it's normal and she should just accept it. I mean if you kiss and hold onto a man during an outing, yet he's not sure if it's a date that's just really depressing. I would've dropped him right there so he could go work out his issues ~.~ I'm not as nice as Emma apparently.

I had to read this for a psychology decision-making class, but this book has nothing to do with decision-making (I blame my teacher for that one). The book has five different chapters and lots of notes, taking a crack at different concepts of human consciousness. Each chapter addresses a different theme, and so the chapters don't flow into each other.The chapters start with scientific evidence, mostly from case studies and Ramachandran's own research. The style is very accessible and Ramachandran breaks it down into easy to understand terms, even if you've never had a psychology class before. The bad thing is that Ramachandran loves to theorize about things, and he backs his theories with scientific evidence. However, that evidence comes from case studies and sometimes unpublished data, and so, technically, since case studies are specifically about one person or event, case studies aren't too reliable as scientific evidence. It's impossible to know if one case is representative of all cases or just an exception. That being said, the book is definitely an interesting view of human consciousness, but it's mostly just theories. I advise you to read it with caution, making sure to note exactly when he's talking about scientifically proven ideas and when he's discussing his personal view on theory.

Russell brings Korean pop culture to your attention through interviews, research, and random historical facts. His tone is very casual, so you can relax while reading it. The first half of the book focuses on movies and the history of the film industry. Music is also given some coverage, but not much is said of manhwa. It was rather disappointing, especially since I think a lot of non-Korean people are introduced to Korean pop culture through scanlations online (which he mentions in passing). In fact, I think the most popular Korean mediums online are TV dramas, music, and manhwa. So why he chose to focus more on films was beyond me. This book was a chore to read at times, especially in the film sections. The organization becomes extremely chaotic. Sometimes the author jumps ahead in time but only to go backwards and explain something else. I found it hard to keep timelines straight. It's also hard to keep track of who's who, but that's because everyone tends to have the same last name, which isn't the author's fault.My favorite parts of the book are the random side snippets of information. It's interesting to get a closer look at films, music, and famous people. I really liked the Top TV dramas and Movies lists. I think the book may have been more interesting if the author included a section of how Korean pop culture fared in the US. He wrote about American acceptance or indifference of Korean culture in a few places, but not a definite section in which he interviewed Americans about Korean culture. It's definitely interesting to read if you want to know more about past Korean pop culture, but it's not helpful for present or future trends.

Reality Bites Back is a very thick book. There are millions and millions of hours of reality TV and different types of reality TV, and so this book needs to be thick to accomplish its goal. In part, I think it does, but in other aspects, it doesn't.If I had titled this book, it would've been Unscripted Women Bite Back: Age Old Views in Reality TV or something of the sort. Most of the book focuses on women, which is probably the author's strong point, but I think that made this book weak. Gender does not exist in a vacuum, and we know that more than one gender exists. Degrading women doesn't just hurt women. It also hurts men, and reality TV shows men in a negative light. The book only contains a few paragraphs about men, but I feel like it would've been a stronger argument if a whole chapter or more was dedicated to how men are falsely represented on TV.The themes go in between women, minorities, and LGBTQ (I'm sorry if I missed a group). It's great that the author has lots of material, but all of it gets mashed into a big jumble and it's hard to dissect apart. I think the author had good intentions of separating topics by chapters, but then topics blended into each, and women issues ended up in chapters about LGBTQ. Those issues are probably connected, but it would've been nice if she created a few borders between them so that the topics were more understandable. I thought that maybe the author could've divided it by TV shows, but then lots of TV shows share similar themes, so that wouldn't have worked either. Honestly, there are just too many themes and topics to discuss about reality TV, and not all of them can fit into a book. It might've been better if she wrote multiple books on reality TV, each focusing on a different theme or different type of reality TV.The chapter at the end of the book is fun and thought provoking. She encourages you to keep watching your favorite reality TV shows, but to speak up, make fun of, or analyze what's going on as you watch the show. I wanted to try her ideas and attempted to watch The Kardashian Show...but I failed miserable. That show really bored me, so maybe I'll try another one later.I feel like this book just scraps the top of reality TV, like taking the sugar off the top of homemade jelly. If you really want to experience the jelly, you have to take some of the sugar with the jelly underneath, bit by bit at a time. That's not something this book does. The book's argument just goes on and on, which can leave you mentally exhausted. While reading this, I wanted to take a step back and just think about a point Pozner made and digest it. I also wanted to find out more information and read more sources about the topic before moving on. Basically, if you're interested in TV and cultural views, then I'd recommend this book, but I'd also recommend you read something else. It's a good book to have in your repertoire to get an idea of reality TV, but I don't think it should be the one-all and be-all book that you read. Another way to put it is if you were writing an essay on Reality TV, I'd suggest you read this book to get an idea of what to write about and basic knowledge, but don't quote it as a source when you get into the deeper details of your paper (unless you're actually using it to make your point, of course).As a side note, I don't watch reality TV unless my mom is watching. Every time she watches it, I don't see what's so great or attractive about watching other people's lives. That's just weird to me and makes me feel like an awkward peeper...

Reading this story was a pain in the neck. All I could think was, "Dumb! Da Dumb! Da DUUUMMMB!" I know the author set Edna up as a flawed tragic character, and boy, was she really flawed. This is not a character that I would ever claim for feminism. I honestly hope feminists are a bit smarter than this woman, especially considering that Edna thinks she has escaped from being a possession by making her own choices when, in reality, she hasn't.The main reason why I hated reading this story was because of the writing style. The book seemed to have sections of boring simple sentences, and then sections of beautifully worded phrases. Then those beautifully worded phrased turned into silly metaphors that I could not take seriously. In fact, I wrote them down so I can mock them in the future. I had sincere problems accessing the text and understanding Edna's choices. All I could think was that Edna was naive and really needed some education on relationships and society. However, I honestly don't think we're supposed to like her based on the way the narrator talks about her and her choices. The inaccessibility of the text could be that I can't revert my mind to older ways of thinking. I can't think in terms of the setting that the book was written in.Anyway, the only redeemable features of the book are the leitmotivs and symbolism. The same themes carry on from the beginning 'til the end, and with footnotes, it's easy to catch allusions and all the fun literature stuff that English lovers like to geek about. I think it can possibly be a great discussion book, but only if you can catch on to the connections and foreshadowing and are willing to get over Edna's poor decision-making skills. I also think this book can be a great story for writers to study if they want to learn more about working literature elements into their own stories. Otherwise, I suggest you avoid this story. There are better stories out there, especially when it comes to Louisiana fiction. I feel like we've wasted precious time in class talking about this book.

I would give this book 2.5 stars.I really can't hate on it too much since these stories were written a long time ago. A lot of people seemed to make a big deal out of King Arthur and the Round Table, and so I expected a little more. Maybe there's more historical value in the history and folklore of this book, but I didn't have annotations and notes to enjoy that history. For those of you who know nothing about King Arthur, I'll just give you a basic summary. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are legendary figures from England's folklore. They have ties to the whole world, especially the Roman empire, and so therefore, the knights are chivalrous and goodly while King Arthur is so great he has the right, by birth, to rule over everything. This book is basically a collection of tales that follow different knights from Arthur's Round Table. They begin with the origin of Arthur and end tragically with a bitter war. Personally, I thought this book was basically a soap opera written by men. It was very repetitive and dramatic with lots of fighting and killing. There are also a few ladies to love on the side, and a sneaky affair that nearly destroys everyone in its way. Every now and then, a knight will run into some devious magic or will have to put their faith in God.I do think there's historical significance to learn from these tales when someone reads them. However, I didn't particularly enjoy them, and so, I rated this book pretty low. If you enjoy reading about medieval times and like reading about knights, then this book would be perfect for you.As a side note, I thought King Arthur was the greatest man ever in these stories, but it turns out that Sir Lancelot is even bigger than Arthur.

I have mixed feelings about Huck Finn. I think Mark Twain is a master of dialect and comedy in literature, but reading the dialect gave me a headache. It took me months to get through this book because I could only read a few pages at a time before becoming tired. I know some people read this book when they're in elementary school or middle school, and honestly, I feel sorry for those kids. If you can avoid this book, I suggest you do it. If the dialect wasn't so heavy, I could've enjoyed the book.The beginning starts off slow. In fact, there's not much of a plot at all. A lot of the same themes repeat--lies and their consequences. It's driven more by random events rather than action. Some of the scenes are dragged out. I don't see how Huck Finn is acclaimed as a great book. In my opinion, it's not Twain's best work. I prefer Puddn'head Wilson because it has a more defined plot.I only enjoyed the comedy aspect of the book, especially with the duke and king and with the ending. I'm not sure it was worth it to read this book, but at least now, maybe people will think I'm educated because I read an classic. This is one classic that should be praised and not read, just like how Mark Twain claimed a classic was handled.

I think this book could have been wonderful, but a few things ruined it for me. 1. It was hard for me to get into the present tense. However, that's just a personal bias for me. I prefer the past tense.2. The author tells me a story, but doesn't make me feel it. As a reader, I feel totally disconnected from the events and characters, especially the main character. Some of the main character's opinions and thoughts make her seem selfish and like she's been reading too many teen magazines. I don't necessarily think she's flat, but I just can't feel that she's as strong as every character claims she is.3. The body issues/beauty theme is poorly done. She only attracts attention from someone when she's...skinnier? I mean she did attract someone when she was heavier, but then a character implied that the man only liked her because she had some weight. So...that implies men only like her for her body. Horrible. I think the author should've emphasized the other reasons why men were falling in love with Elisa. The absolute biggest problem I have with this book are the scenes where Elisa throws up. She threw up because she ate too much and felt bad. The why the scenes are written sound like they promote bulimia. I understand feeling nauseous when you're depressed or upset, but I don't think the author emphasized the bad feelings as much as she could've. To make the scenes less pro-bulimia, she could've added something along the lines of, "The food churned in the dark pit of my stomach. This war...my friends...they were all suffering. Thinking of their pain while I feasted left a vile taste in my mouth. The rich food wretched upward and forward onto the tiles of my bath. I didn't deserve such goodness while they suffered." Something extravagant like that instead of, "I felt bad about my situation, so I ate more and then threw up." At least make it clear that she's throwing up because she feels like an emotional wreck rather than just eating too much.4. There isn't enough description about emotions. Elisa did this. She felt this. OK. That's nice I guess, but how did she physically feel? Did her thoughts race or turn black? I mean what's going on with this character below her skin that not even she may realize at first? I feel like the author does a somewhat good job of telling the reader what's on the surface but isn't hinting or describing anything below the surface.5. The ending seems very forced and convenient for the main character.6. Elisa compares herself to other people, but then nothing deep comes from those comparisons. She just claims, "I'm not my sister" and moves on. She could've at least put in a little more effort than a shallow observation and realized how the comparisons hurt her or hindered her.As a side note, I like the godstones in the story. They add a mystery and help Elisa to grow. The ending has undeniable Christian influences, which aren't so bad, but it's kinda cheesy.

Daniel. Daniel. Oh, Daniel. Ooooooh, Daniel!Basically:Good: The story has action.Bad: The action all rushes forward at the end.This story has a lot of potential, but let's start at the beginning. It has a very lovely cover with not too descriptive praise at the top of the book. Let me tell you, nothing is sexy or scary about this story. A good number of the characters in this book are just portraits and not players, especially Luce. She just seems to go with the flow, except towards the end. I think that's supposed to show her character change, but it just doesn't work too well. She's still desperately only fighting for one thing because she's in love. That's not character. That's desperation, which, in case authors haven't noticed, doesn't look too good on anyone. If Luce and Daniel had died, I think this story would have been very fulfilling for me. A lot of the description wasn't really exciting description. She felt so-and-so. They did this and that. His face was golden, and his neck was long. Daniel was a giraffe. Someone simply told me a story, but they didn't make me feel it and or even see it. Description is nice, but stop telling me and start showing me. A lot of the time I sat there thinking, "What the hell am I reading?" It got to the point where I started skipping pages and didn't miss any of the story. It seems like a lot of the scenes have nothing to do with the plot. The actual plot is all smushed up together at the end. I wanted to know more about the back stories of Gabbe, Arriane, and Cam, especially. Personally, I would've chosen him over Daniel. Daniel be damned with his glorious self. Give me the prankster who doesn't shoot a crush the bird. I really don't care if he's supposed to be the "evil" one either. He's more likeable than Daniel who just happens to be showing up at the right times like a stalker. However, I don't understand Cam's preoccupation with Luce. She's not good enough for him. The scene where Luce tells Daniel about how smart she is made me laugh. I really wanted to pat her head, and say, "It's ok. You don't have to prove yourself. We already know the truth about your *cough* intellectual abilities." Luce isn't smart at all, especially considering she walks herself into Cam's arms, expecting to tell him off. Oh, really? Oh, one kiss will really make an admirer go away. Yeah. Sure. One kiss. I don't understand the point of that scene either.The fight between the two sides, if it was even a fight, made no sense to me. What's the point? In fact, what's the point of their loving relationship? To make the book feel more complete, it would've been nice to have a better explanation of what was going on. Oh, Luce just needs to awaken to everything, and I should read the next book...How about no. Just tell me what I need to know so the first story can make sense. Why should I read a second story when I didn't care for the first one?

I have mixed feelings about this book. I definitely enjoyed reading it and read every single word. In fact, I read some parts so quickly that my brain couldn't process what was happening, and I had to force myself to slow down. The opening was very enjoyable. I even developed a crush on the main character. He was sweet, trying to stick up for others and help them. Besides, I also kind of have a voice inside my head like his, except not as extreme, so I can connect with him. I liked reading in his perspective until he started repeating things he already said, but that's a different story.Then the middle section of the book came, and I started to grimace. My crush instantly disappeared at that scene. The scene which really added no worth to the book in my opinion and only added to my dislike for Julie. However, that's probably me being biased because of my crush.When it comes to bullying and cyberbullying, I have little to no experience in my life with those topics, so I don't feel like I'm qualified to talk about the themes of the book. Honestly, I kind of understand all the talk about not forgiving and forgetting or forgiving and such, but then I don't think I understand what was happening with that topic in the context of the book. I do think that it's wonderful that Blout was able to combine all of those topics into one book, something I don't think many people can do without struggling and thinking a lot about why and how bullying works or doesn't work.Towards the end of the book, I felt like the story started to fall apart. The opening was fantastic, the middle was so-so, but by the end of the book, I was ready to slap a big one-star on the book and be done with it. It's like I was on a reading roller coaster and the cart flew off the track and crashed with a firey explosion, but I got up and walked away only with a maimed leg when I should've been dead. The ending was definitely over melodramatic and unnecessary in my opinion. Dan seems pathetic in the falling action, and how does no one on the beach notice? I really love how Dan prepares to move forward with his life, but at the same time, it seems horrible because he's described as skinny and not appearing too well.I won a copy from Joy Prebble's blog, and the author actually wrote me notes. It was awesome ^_^. She's a really nice person, and I hope she writes another novel some day. I'd like to read more of her fiction work.

This book left me with mixed feelings. I love the interspersion of mythology, but I don't like how simple the writing is. Most of the time, I grimaced because the author kept telling me what the characters thought instead of showing me what happened. On the other hand, The author wrote the story for young adults, of course. If I was 10-years-old, I'd be enthralled with this book. My favorite character is Hekate, mostly due to her attitude and power. I wish she was in the story a bit more, but alas...that isn't the case. Perenelle is pretty cool, too, because she fights back even though she's the "damsel in distress." The twins' personalities start out ok, but then become annoying really fast. They repeat things constantly, and sometimes make no sense. For example, Josh's feelings jumping back and forth very quickly towards the end of the book made no sense to me. I just couldn't believe he actually felt the way because there wasn't conviction and consistency in his actions and words. I really enjoy the beginning, especially how the book just jumps start into the action. However, there's so much going on in this story that I think it would make a better movie than a book. The story wasn't a fantastic, great, amazing story. It was more of an ok thing. In my opinion, the best parts are the mythology and the clever animal scenes. Josh is really frustrating to read about, and the simple sentences drive me insane because they're flatly stated in a bad way. However, despite the bad, I want to continue this series. I'm really hoping it gets better.