Thursday, August 4, 2011

Book Reviews

I LOVE to read! And I have a bit of a problem, I get so into the book, it is super difficult to focus on anything else until I finish it. But a girl has to work. So I got to work and then rush home to finish m book. So far this week I have finished 3 books. One Monday, one yesterday and one this evening. I want to give my own little review of each of them and one I read a couple weeks ago for the second time.
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 I was assigned this book to read as a junior in high school. Looking at a 700 page book and having a whole summer ahead of me, I tossed it aside and never managed to get back to it. Thankfully, the teacher didn't finish it either, so it didn't count against me. Well somehow it ended up among my brother's things and he read it. He told me about it and I decided if he could read it, then I obviously could too. I'm sooo happy I did! A GREAT book, five stars! I enjoy reading for pleasure but I also feel like our pasttimes are becoming more and more dumb and we as a whole are becoming stupider. I enjoyed reading this book and actually having to look up words. Yes I had to grab a dictionary and look up a few, but I loved that I could feel myself getting smarter. I also loved the complexities of her characters, they changed, they grew, they were real. It also showed how we can be destroyed by others if we don't stand up for ourselves and simply rely on others opinions of us. And how this ultimately affects society as a whole. It is a definite must read. Yes it took me 9 days to read, but definitely worth the time. Must read, 5 stars.



This book was also a reading assignment in high school, my freshman year. I actually read it then for the first time and loved it. It is about a society that has used technology to promote absolute "sameness" and is a completely communistic society. Everyone has a job, everyone contributes, no one is better than another. And nobody knows any better or any different, except for one and then his replacement to be - a 12 year old boy. This old man and boy develop a frienship and a plan to change their society because they realize how they are living isn't REALLY living. Short read, very interesting, great characters and an ending that could go either way. Well I re-read this book last week and this time wondered if the ending I believed at age 14 was what the author intended because at age 26, I was kind of leaning the other way and didn't like that ending. My friend informed me of two books that relate to The Giver. I quickly purchased them. And I definitely reccomend The Giver with a full 5 stars!



This book really has no major relation to The Giver, except that it mentions a boy with blue eyes, referring to Jonas from The Giver. This book is also a relatively easy, short read. It is a completely different type of society than The Giver. This society is essentially being kept in the dark ages and everyone fights to get what they want. There a few gifted individuals and they are separated from society and used for their gifts. I don't think the plot was very developed. There wasn't a big climax and then resolution, it just simply trotted along. A couple slight issues noticed and then it ends. I didn't love it as much as The Giver. I'd give it like 3.5 stars.



The next day I read Messenger. Another short, easy read. The plot was a little better than Gathering Blue, you get to see Jonas from The Giver more. This society is like the perfect society, where everyone helps and loves each other, everyone is accepted, but all differences are celebrated. But one character is essentially poisoning the society. I enjoyed this book more than Gathering Blue, but still wish the plot had been developed more, more on this dark character and what actually was going on turning the society rotten. Overal, I give it 4 stars.

By the way in case you read these and like them, Lois Lowry is writing a fourth book more on the little baby, Gabriel from The Giver, no title yet, but it will be out in 2012. If you have any must reads I should know about please tell me!

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