The Hobbit

10 Jul

by J.R.R. Tolkien (5/5)

I have a hard time distinguishing between my love for this book and the nostalgia it engenders in me. This was one of my favorite books as a kid, and it remains so to this day.

One of the first things I like about this book is that Bilbo is fully grown when his adventure began. So many fantasy stories have kids and teenagers realizing they have some sort of special power. Bilbo is an adult, and he doesn’t just have powers. He grows throughout the course of the book and learns to deal with situations in a proactive way.

Another thing I like about this book is that it is purely easy to read. The action is regular, and the story moves much faster than The Lord of the Rings.

The only problem I had with the book on this re-read was not even Tolkien’s fault. I had to skip all the poetry, because whenever I read them I still hear the songs from Bakshi’s animated version of the film. Those songs are earworms.

I unabashedly love this book, and look forward to reading this to my own kids some day.

Are you a morning or night person?

08 Jul

I definitely consider myself a night person. I’m more productive at night and hate getting up in the mornings.

That said, I really can conform to any schedule, but not with normal results. For example, when I had to be at work at 6 a.m., and had to have my homework done before leaving, I would go to bed early, and wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning to complete my homework before going to work.

I also had a period in my life where I was working 12-5 p.m., and doing high school in my free time. I ended up staying up every night until 3 a.m. and then waking up in time to roll out of bed and go to work.

Ask me anything

I, Elizabeth

07 Jul

by Rosalind Miles (2/5)

I, Elizabeth Simply put, this book did not float my boat. Generally, I am a fan of historical fiction, especially anything relating to the Tudor era. But this book nearly took away my will to live.

To me, the joy of historical fiction is the chance to visit (or revisit) previous events and get them with an interesting look from the view of the narrator or protagonist. Despite other shortcomings, Philippa Gregory does this well, especially in The Other Boleyn Girl. Miles, however, managed to write a book that somehow moves too quickly, drags tediously, is confusing, disorienting and repetitive.

Elizabeth is not presented as an interesting character. Instead she is whiny, bitchy, and downright annoying.

I found a review on Goodreads that summed up my issue with her character perfectly:

If Elizabeth I was as portrayed in this book, she wasn’t just a queen of England, she was a drama queen. As portrayed by Miles, Elizabeth is a whiny, histrionic little brat with absolutely no strength whatsoever. She never commands her people; she “sobbed,” she “wept,” she “screeched,” she “howled,” she “screamed,” she “told them tearfully,” and “wept afresh.” As far as I can tell, she spent about 50 years alternately sobbing, screaming and screeching.

She seems to spend the majority of the book either in crisis, in horribly unfulfillable love or worrying about her age. And speaking of her age, the pacing does not flow well at all. She seems to skip years, bemoaning her age in decades.

This book is long, too. More than 600 pages of Elizabeth writing about her life. It takes the form of an autobiography, a self-narrated tale in which Elizabeth wants to set forth the circumstances of her life. But instead of just maintaining a straightforward path, there are also long stretches of italicized sections which are Elizabeth’s later thoughts on previous events. These sections, especially with their forced foreshadowing, made the book even harder to read because they kept pulling me out of the narrative flow.

I didn’t give up on this book because I thought at some point, events would get interesting. But they never did. It took me almost a month to get through this book because I dreaded picking it up.

So, while not the worst book I have ever read, I don’t feel better for completing it. I don’t want to give it a 1, just because it is historical fiction, and somehow that gives it an extra point. I’m just glad to have it out of the way so I can start on the rest of my summer reading.

Book List

06 Jul

I’m compiling a list of books I plan to read this summer and fall. These are all books I own, and need to read them. I also hope to do a review on each of them when I finish.

  • Harry Potter Series –JK Rowling * 4/5
  • Will Grayson, Will Grayson–John Green 5/5
  • I, Elizabeth –Rosalind Miles 2/5
  • Metamorphoses–Ovid
  • The Inferno–Dante
  • The Great Gatsby–F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Heat Wave–Richard Castle
  • Someplace to be Flying–Charles De Lint
  • Paper Towns–John Green *
  • A Separate Peace–John Knowles
  • The Historian–Elizabeth Kostova
  • The Complete Sherlock Holmes–Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
  • Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell–Susanna Clarke
  • The Origin of Species–Charles Darwin
  • Slaughterhouse-Five–Kurt Vonnegut
  • The Hobbit–J.R.R. Tolkien * 5/5
  • The Lord of the Rings–J.R.R. Tolkien *
  • The Tolkien Reader–J.R.R. Tolkien *
  • The Journals of Sylvia Plath

* denotes previously read

The Last Airbender

02 Jul

2.5/5

I’d like to start this review by saying I thought I’d hate this film. I’ve been a fan of the animated series for quite a long time, and while I never got into the debate regarding racebending, I see where it stems from. While the movie did not hold up to its animated counterpart, it was not nearly as bad as I wasexpecting.

I suppose I should start with my problems with it. As a whole, it lacked the charm and humor that made Avatar: The Last Airbender such an excellent series. I don’t think Aang laughed a single time in the entire film, and Sokka made possibly one sarcastic remark. The characters were very serious and aware of the gravity of their endeavors in a very mature fashion. The first five minutes of the film were essentially the first five minutes of the show with the funny bits cut out.

Also, they changed the pronunciation of their names. This was probably the part that irked me the most about the film. There was no need to call Sokka “Sowe-kuh.” It made it seem like the Shyamalan had never actually watched the television series, and just decided to pronounce the names as they were seen on paper.

Some of the graphics, also, were a bit dodgy. There was one close-up on Appa’s face that was especially bad, but most of the animals weren’t done very well.

That said, I think there was some decent stuff in the film. I was impressed by the fight scenes, and it was interesting to see a “realistic” interpretation of the different sorts of bending.

The movie stayed pretty close to the plot line of the show, so there weren’t too many jarring “that never happened” moments. While Sokka, Katara and Aang seemed different than their show counterparts, Zuko seemed dead on. Besides one awkward scene forced in to reveal his backstory, his personality stayed in line with Zuko from the series. Iroh, while quite different from the show, also was interesting to watch.

The movie felt evenly paced, although there was definitely more room for character development to be inserted without upsetting the flow of the film.

All in all, not a bad film. Not amazing, but not the total disaster I expected. I left it feeling about the level of satisfaction I felt after seeing Percy Jackson and the Olympians or one of the first two Harry Potter films. I’d watch it again, but wouldn’t pay money to do so.

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