Date Started: September 20, 2014
Date Finished: September 22, 2014
Woah woah woah. I finished this book on Monday, but just now on Wednesday I'm ready to write my review. This was another book I read in highschool, I knew I liked it but could vaguely remember it. I don't think I was quite prepared for the ending.
So the story starts out in this world where everything is equal and everyone is the same. No one has choices in this world. Jobs, partners, kids, names are all assigned to minimize pain, hurt, confusion, the unknown. Everyone is stuck in the middle of emotions and society; no one experiences the extremes.
Jonas is selected to be the new receiver of memories; this means he's the sole owner of all past memories, of all pain, suffering, war, happiness, love and such.. He learns these memories from the current receiver, who now goes by the Giver. The more memories he receives, the more he questions how the current society is being run. He sometimes agrees and sometimes disagrees. He ends up running away from the community with a baby, Gabriel, who was about to be 'released' meaning killed because the baby wasn't up to par with community standards. Jonas runs away hoping to find Elsewhere, where he thinks he can find people a new community that would understand. Jonas and Gabriel run out of food and strength, find a sled at the top of a snowy mountain, and they ride the sled down a hill towards a village with colored lights and Christmas trees and music. This also happens to be a collection of memories that the Giver had shown him throughout the book. You are left not knowing if they found Elsewhere, or if they died of hunger and hypothermia in the snow.
When I got to the ending of this book, I was in such shock! I was so hopeful that Jonas and Gabriel would make it to Elsewhere and would find what they were looking for. The character Gabriel represented such a new hope and a different kind of being that what Jonas and the rest of the community had been brought up in. Jonas had been feeding Gabriel memories for the past year as he was a fussy child and wouldn't sleep through the night. Jonas would give him memories of happiness to soothe him and put him to sleep. I was curious to see what kind of person Gabriel would grow up to be with all those good memories from early on. Reading the ending of them on the sled riding down the hill, recalling earlier in the book that Jonas had received these memories from the Giver, it broke my heart. My first reaction was that they died. There's no way he'd be venturing into a town that was the exact replica of another memory. I was so upset about it.
But then again, what if they did make it? The Giver's memories are memories from the past of all memories, so it's quite possible that they did make it to this Elsewhere and there was a sled waiting for them. It happened once to someone, so it could be there and happen again.
For me to not completely hate this book, I'll choose to believe the latter. I'm a sucker for happy endings, and I really wanted Gabriel to get the second chance he deserved and thrive.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Monday, July 14, 2014
Book 12: Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
Date Started: June 13, 2014
Date Finished: July 12, 2014
Took me just about a month to read this! This was a hard book to read, only because the main character was horrible and the other characters were confusing to understand.
I thought this book was going to be a fun read: wife of a doctor gets bored in her marriage and decides to start having affairs. Well, Madam Bovary was never happy for long in anything she did. She was unhappy in her marriage so she starts seeing this other man, he leaves and she almost dies from depression. Then she starts having another affair, who she gets bored of. Then she is in such debt of having her lavish lifestyle, she doesn't want her husband to find out, she eats poison, then she dies. Then the husband dies. Then the parents dies. Which forces the daughter to go live with a cousin and be put to manual labor. The end.
Such a hard read where it takes 5 pages to describe how poorly she's feeling about a certain situation. Then another 5 pages to make up her mind about a simple idea, then another 10 pages to see how upset she is about that decision. This character is not likable in anyway. In fact, there really is no character in this whole book that is really likable. The author had poor character development on all the side characters, so I really couldn't remember who they ever were. There was no one to root for. I don't think I'll ever want to read this book again, or think about it for that matter. The only thing that kept me reading fast was so I could finish it and be done with it. ugh
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
Book 11: Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
Date Started: February 7, 2014
Date Ended: April 16, 2014
Wow what a journey! This was another book I had started a few times before, and could never get past the marsh scene when he first meets the convict. I had only been aware of the movie adaptation with Gwenyth Paltrow and Ethan Hawk, not that I ever saw it, but I figured it was some sort of love story, which is what made me want to read. Then I would read about Pip and his crazy sister and this convict he meets, I'd get bored, then I'd quit. This time of course I finished! And boy am I happy I did.
The book starts out a little slow to me. Again, reading about this boy Pip, who lives with his abusive crazy Sister and her husband Joe. Out on a walk Pip runs into this convict in the marshes who still has his shackles on. The convict threatens Pip to go get him a file and food, otherwise he'll come find him and hurt him. Pip does as he's asked, the convict escapes. The next day the convict and another are arrested again and sent back to prison.
One day Pip is invited to a house where an old rich lady Miss Havisham resides with a young adopted girl named Estella. Miss Havisham keeps inviting Pip over to play in hopes that Pip will fall madly in love with Estella, all while she does not give back any feelings. Miss Havisham was hurt in her past, and she adopted and raised Estella to be cold and heartless as part of her revenge on men. Her plan works, Pip falls in love, and Estella couldn't care less.
Some time down the road Pip gets a letter from a lawyer Mr Jaggers that he has come into a lot of money and great expetations and he is to live in London to become a gentleman. He isn't allowed to find out who his benefactor is. He assumes it's Miss Havisham and that she is setting him up to be married to Estella. He spends a lot of his time taking Estella out as Miss Havisham requests. Estella ends up marrying Bentley, a foe of Pip, and breaks his heart. Confused, he confronts Miss Havisham, and finds out she was not his benefactor after all.
Now into adulthood and living with great debt, the convict he helped out turns up and confesses that he was his benefactor. He had escaped from prison again, earned lots of money the honest way, and wanted it to go to good use. He wanted to return the favor to Pip since he helped him out back in the day. Pip was shocked and upset and didn't want to be in debt to this convict. They try to get the convict to leave London, but they get caught and the convict, now going by Provis, gets sentenced to death. After this happens, Pip realizes how much he was thankful of Provis and visited him every day in jail until he passed away from his injuries.
After Provis dies, Pip gets really sick, and Joe comes up to visit and take care of him. Pip is sorry for leaving Joe and wants to thank him for everything he's ever done for him. He travels back home to visit Joe, then plans to travel abroad to go live and work with a friend. 11 years later he returns to visit Joe and his wife Biddy, then runs into Estella again. They meet and he sees " no shadow of another parting from her. " I'm assuming they finally get married
This was such a journey to be on with Pip, starting from when he was a young boy, to almost a gentlemen, to losing it all, to working for himself, then to finally getting the woman of his dreams. Sometimes stuff has to work out that way in life. If he had married Estella back then, she would have still been heartless and wouldn't have appreciated him the way I'm sure she did now. She had married Bentley, suffered abuse from him, then he passed away. After all that happened she was able to realize what she had missed out on by not marrying Pip. Also, this gave Pip a chance to experience gains and losses and to figure himself out.
This was my first time reading Charles Dickens. I'm so happy I was finally able to finish this book. This definitely won't be my last.
Date Ended: April 16, 2014
Wow what a journey! This was another book I had started a few times before, and could never get past the marsh scene when he first meets the convict. I had only been aware of the movie adaptation with Gwenyth Paltrow and Ethan Hawk, not that I ever saw it, but I figured it was some sort of love story, which is what made me want to read. Then I would read about Pip and his crazy sister and this convict he meets, I'd get bored, then I'd quit. This time of course I finished! And boy am I happy I did.
The book starts out a little slow to me. Again, reading about this boy Pip, who lives with his abusive crazy Sister and her husband Joe. Out on a walk Pip runs into this convict in the marshes who still has his shackles on. The convict threatens Pip to go get him a file and food, otherwise he'll come find him and hurt him. Pip does as he's asked, the convict escapes. The next day the convict and another are arrested again and sent back to prison.
One day Pip is invited to a house where an old rich lady Miss Havisham resides with a young adopted girl named Estella. Miss Havisham keeps inviting Pip over to play in hopes that Pip will fall madly in love with Estella, all while she does not give back any feelings. Miss Havisham was hurt in her past, and she adopted and raised Estella to be cold and heartless as part of her revenge on men. Her plan works, Pip falls in love, and Estella couldn't care less.
Some time down the road Pip gets a letter from a lawyer Mr Jaggers that he has come into a lot of money and great expetations and he is to live in London to become a gentleman. He isn't allowed to find out who his benefactor is. He assumes it's Miss Havisham and that she is setting him up to be married to Estella. He spends a lot of his time taking Estella out as Miss Havisham requests. Estella ends up marrying Bentley, a foe of Pip, and breaks his heart. Confused, he confronts Miss Havisham, and finds out she was not his benefactor after all.
Now into adulthood and living with great debt, the convict he helped out turns up and confesses that he was his benefactor. He had escaped from prison again, earned lots of money the honest way, and wanted it to go to good use. He wanted to return the favor to Pip since he helped him out back in the day. Pip was shocked and upset and didn't want to be in debt to this convict. They try to get the convict to leave London, but they get caught and the convict, now going by Provis, gets sentenced to death. After this happens, Pip realizes how much he was thankful of Provis and visited him every day in jail until he passed away from his injuries.
After Provis dies, Pip gets really sick, and Joe comes up to visit and take care of him. Pip is sorry for leaving Joe and wants to thank him for everything he's ever done for him. He travels back home to visit Joe, then plans to travel abroad to go live and work with a friend. 11 years later he returns to visit Joe and his wife Biddy, then runs into Estella again. They meet and he sees " no shadow of another parting from her. " I'm assuming they finally get married
This was such a journey to be on with Pip, starting from when he was a young boy, to almost a gentlemen, to losing it all, to working for himself, then to finally getting the woman of his dreams. Sometimes stuff has to work out that way in life. If he had married Estella back then, she would have still been heartless and wouldn't have appreciated him the way I'm sure she did now. She had married Bentley, suffered abuse from him, then he passed away. After all that happened she was able to realize what she had missed out on by not marrying Pip. Also, this gave Pip a chance to experience gains and losses and to figure himself out.
This was my first time reading Charles Dickens. I'm so happy I was finally able to finish this book. This definitely won't be my last.
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