Reading 'Red Queen'

I first saw the book cover and blurb in my newsfeed a few months or weeks ago but easily dismissed it as some typical dystopian novel which is all over nowadays. I even thought that it was already published then. Then a few days ago, I saw National Bookstore's post in my feed again announcing that the book is finally out. This confused me and somehow prompted me to look for the book in Goodreads. As obsessive-compulsive as I am, I read the author's short bio first, then the book description, and finally bought the kindle edition. Then all readers would surely know what will follow next, right?

Oh boy was I sucked into reading. I stayed up all night and until noon the next day(?) just to finish it. Somehow I am not even sure when I finished the book because my mind was still reeling when I fell asleep and my dreams were all filled with Mare, Cal and Maven.

Here's the book's blurb in Goodreads:

The poverty stricken Reds are commoners, living under the rule of the Silvers, elite warriors with god-like powers.

To Mare Barrow, a 17-year-old Red girl from The Stilts, it looks like nothing will ever change.

Mare finds herself working in the Silver Palace, at the center of those she hates the most. She quickly discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy Silver control.

But power is a dangerous game. And in this world divided by blood, who will win?

To me, the story was definitely engaging and I think this is one of the most important things in YA books. That feeling that where you would want to keep turning the next page, wanting to find out more. And it also helps that the sentences were not long, droning, and yeah, boring. 

After reading the book, I even hunted down the author's twitter and blog. It amazed me that this is her debut novel. Congrats Victoria! I also read her entire blog (it wasn't that long) which chronicled her way from being a new BFA grad to being signed to a literary agent and to the book being published and the fun craziness and everything in between. Perhaps it's because I also want to write that I find her blog inspiring and very informative.

Now, for the spoilers.... I am sorry I just can't help myself... all book nerds can't huhu. So you can close the page now if you haven't read the book.

Reading My First Non-Fiction Book This Year (And Rediscovering Ada Lovelace)

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As part of my 2015 Goodreads Reading Challenge, I decided to read more nonfiction books this year. Then I also read about the book's synopsis from National Bookstore's Facebook page. I do not know what struck me with that post, but I purchased the ebook.

I have learned most about computer history stuff at school; but, sadly, it wasn't taught as interestingly as how the author wrote it in the book. It made me wonder, how I would've wanted to become a computer engineer or theoretical physicist if I had read this book or was taught this way in high school. The book made me look back at the different figures, forgotten footnotes, and figure out how the connections between them all fit together. At some points, I felt like I was reading a script from a very interesting kdrama.

Yet, perhaps it is with the storytelling and the narrative I was hooked with.

This is honestly my first foray into nonfiction reading in the past years. (Sadly, I was a book snob like that). But I resolve to be otherwise from now on. :D



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At Least We Can Apologize, A Review

Kindle Edition

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine this : One day suddenly waking up inside a mental institution. You do not have any memory of how you got there nor why. But somehow you managed to adapt in the environment as if it was like a home where you were fed, medicated, given sleeping accommodation and assigned everyday tasks. One of these tasks is to apologize of the wrongdoings of other residents. What is more is that you do all these things as if it is the most natural thing in the twisted world that is of the institution.
This is what happens to Sibong and Jin-man, two young men who were brought to a mental institution at an early age, and then forced to adapt at such demanding place.

The story At Least We Can Apologize penned by Lee Ki-Ho begins in a light, somber tone. One could chuckle and smile a bit at the silliness of the premise. But one will also know that there is something foreboding about it.

Admittedly, I purchased the ebook after being intrigued by the book’s synopsis. I was like: ‘Who, in their right minds, will apologize for any wrong of my own doing?’

Yet, unknowingly, with that question, I also found the answer. Who in their right minds will do such thing? Presumably, the antagonists in the story were not of right minds because they were admitted to a mental institution. But were they?

This is what the narrative explores. Through Jin-Man’s thoughts and voice, I began to empathize, relate and explore what really is being mentally-ill and what it is not. For there is a fine, thin line between that on some, maybe most, people.

I like the book because it does not dither and dawdle on what it truly can be in the world of mental health care (or lack thereof). I do not wish to reveal more of the plot but I can say that the story makes this known in such peculiar and gripping ways.

I also found the narrator’s voice curious, candid and sincere. Though warped and nonlinear may the narrator’s way of thinking is, the reader will come to understand and justify why this is so.

I find this story highly recommended if you prefer to read less-talked about topics or issues intertwined in the plot with an air of mystery. It is not an effort to read at all. This was one of my apprehensions at first but, gladly, it was all easily overshadowed with further reading.

Altogether, it’s an engaging read because the story can be real to any one person. We do not have to be mentally-ill to relate to it. Nor we do not have to be thoroughly sane to realize the foolhardy ways with which we live unapologetic lives.

To end this review, I leave with my favorite quote from the book:

Because sometimes your wrongs only go away if you pretend you never knew them.

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Reading Richelle Mead's Silver Shadows [spoiler alert]

** spoiler alert ** 

The 20-Something Life with Green Apples

I find Highway with Green Apples intriguing, mysterious, deeply-woven, and confusing – exactly an unapologetic mastery of my twenty-something life. It is a hauntingly real read. It’s like a zombie – walking across, limping aimlessly, wandering suddenly in my mind, all while checking my twitter feed and emails in between the daily routine that has become of a life.

The typical socially-active twenty-something would have, perhaps, rather dismiss these thoughts and continue staring off the computer screen at work or mindlessly gulp that nth cup of coffee. I thought I would too. Yet I couldn't. Thoughts like: “what the hell! Did she? Did the BFF? Oh no? That other friend was surely unhappy with her in-real-life Dr. McDreamy?!? Woah and now she works as a customer service rep like me? Whoa I feel like eating green apples now under the dawn light? Shall I get a new haircut too? What was her name?! O.o ” I couldn't shake it away.

It’s just that in the story, I felt I was represented and that someone knows how it feels to be in my skin and head. I somehow feel that Bae Suah is freakishly like me or at least the character in her story is; only she likes green apples too much. Perhaps it’s just got something to do with being in this phase of my life. However, honestly, I could easily leave a letter to my parents saying that “I've fallen in love” and would run away in a heartbeat. I would go seek that place by the highway and sell green apples all my life. If that means knowing what I want, getting it, being contented, and be happy with it; despite and amidst all the restrictions society has to place. Yet it’s not all that.

The setting and cultural context may be different from what and where I am living in now but it is mostly still the same struggles somehow. Reading the story felt like there is an acknowledgment of what I feel, like there is hand that reached out to mine. There may not be a solution to the core problem. But it’s enough, it is okay.

☼

Reflections on Kyung-Sook Shin's 'Please Look After Mother'

Please Look After Mom
(Vintage Contemporaries)

I finished reading Kyung-Sook Shin's 'Please Look After Mother' at work earlier. It wasn't queuing so I had time to read.

Many times I paused from reading because tears were slowly coming out. All I could do is stop reading, stare at the ceiling for awhile and hope my seatmate did not notice my slight sobbing.

When I read Sputnik Sweetheart

How do I even begin. First, the title was cheesy. I heard about the book from a friend who was reading Fifty Shades at that time. At first, I thought it was of the same genre, my apologies. That has always been one of my flaws, being judgmental to people, book titles and reading choices. I am trying my best to be a changed person now though.

So there was the story, SS. I first read a HM book years ago before the incident, out of whim, and before the SJ era. I even forgot the title of that book. The only feeling that the book left me was of confusion. The girl in the story somehow disappeared and vanished in her room??! That story was also narrated through a male's point of view. Is this a recurring theme in HM books? Well, maybe I am getting ahead of myself.

Here are my thoughts/realizations/and fifty cents on the book SS by HM:

Judy Blume’s Otherwise Known as Sheila The Great, A review

Dogs, spiders, swimming, ghost stories, thunderstorms, eerie sounds at night, what else? Sheila Tubman fears a lot of things. These things may be trivial to most of us, but to Sheila it was a matter of life and death.

I read Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great today as a light reading. It indeed was! I breezed through it in a couple of hours. I would have finished it sooner if I wasn't laughing so hard at Sheila. Haha! This girl, her ridiculous reasoning when it comes to the things she fears and things she could not admit she can’t do, reminds me so much of my younger self. Fear of dogs, eerie sounds at night, covering ones ears at night… LOL that is so me. And her inner dialogue, speaking so matter of factly of the things or situations she is in, and her tirades with her sister and parents, all these speak so true to me.

Like Sheila The Great, we both are learning and adapting, little by little. I am older now, I am no longer that afraid of dogs, but I still cover my ears when I sleep because I am sure that a monster is coming to get me if I ears are shown ;-P

Well, that is Judy Blume to us. She writes these things eloquently as if I am reading my own story and my own thoughts.  And Mouse, Jane & Sondra, Marty, summer classes, Newsdate, the play with Liddy being cast as Captain Hook instead of being Wendy (I had a laughing fit with this!), truly I wouldn’t forget this summer at Tarrytown.

Read August 29, 2012.

Paper Towns review/reflection

Paper Towns by John Green
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Margo Roth Spiegelman. Even the name gives off that mysterious vibe. Paper Towns chronicles how Q, Quentin Jacobsen, got the miracle in his life. The elusive Margo has asked him to on an adventure of sorts suddenly one night. And just when Q has thought everything is going to be working out, Margo disappears.

It was only Q who was as worried and concerned over what happened to Margo. Despite the fact that Margo has frequently and repeatedly ran away in the past. Q was then off to a journey in finding Margo and somehow realizing who she really is from Walt Whitman, an abandoned mall, and unfinished subdivisions among others.

I envy Margo. She had this untypical courage. Or was this rebellion? I felt she wanted to be found, but repressed this feeling too much which made her more detached from the people around her, specially her family. But who am I to judge how she has felt to be in her family, in her life. Somehow, I can get it though. How it feels. That it's suffocatingly unreal. Like I can't find myself if I am here...

And Q... the ever adoring neighbor but of course he's more than that. The part where he tells about his perception/idea of Margo isn't who she really is... that got me. The paper girl/boy we think of, and see in those photos and shows and videos. It's really not them. We'll need to dig further, find clues, deduce all these to it's meaningful whole, and pray they'll also want to be found.

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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I read the book on a whim. I was intrigued by the title which just proves how much of an unusually-lousy reader I am. Coincidentally, I was nursing a delusionally-broken heart at that time. I resorted to reading again, which I now learned is a way of coping from the harsh realities of my totally-unrelated fangirling life.

So here comes the book, freshly-bound and since I was supposedly-depressed, I jumped with joy when I found the book at the bookstore. And never blinking twice about the Php 600++ price tag.

I did not expect that the book is cancer-related at all. When I read the first few lines, I predicted that it was gonna be boring. (And worse, in the first few pages, physical descriptions of the characters were revealed. Waaaahh! Even in reading a book you are haunting me. Waaaaa!) Please forgive my random spazzing.

Really, I did not expect that the book was cancer-related. This is a sensitive topic for me because cancer runs in our family. I definitely can relate to the medical terms and procedures that were talked about in the book. I knew the ins and outs of cancer, even if I am not a patient myself.

And reading about Hazel and Gus’ life going through it all, I couldn’t even imagine myself in their shoes. Maybe I would have coped differently.

An important thing imparted in the book was about Gus’ fear of oblivion. Since my family’s cancer history, I was /am also worrying about the same thing. When I die, do I just go away, disappear, cease to exist. How will I and how do I make my stay as a conscious sentient being asmeaningful and as beneficial to others.

But then, Van Houten/Hazel’s answers struck me. Because it is true. Because all I have to think of is the now.

There will come a time when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. There will also be no one left to remember Aristotle or Cleopatra, let alone you. Everything that we did and built and wrote and thought and discovered will be forgotten and all of this will have been for naught. Maybe that time is coming soon and maybe it is millions of years away. But even if we survive the collapse of our sun, we will not survive forever.

There was time before consciousness and there will be time after. And if the inevitability of human connection worries you, I encourage you to ignore it.God Knows what’ everyone else does.

Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins Book Review

Spoilers Ahead ;')

i wrote this aeons ago. there must've been typos and erroneous grammar, i didnt re-check. :-/

I have always loved books that brought me to a new world. A world I’d rather live in. A world I could exist and would rather wish I was born there instead.

My first impression of the Hunger Games, the first book, was that it was going to be boring. I felt District 12 was boring and it really was. The districts of Panem were in a depressing state. The Hunger Games, despite brutal and violent is somehow a good way to go before you die. You will feel the luxury of a blessed life. You will eat.

What kept me reading was the love affair. From the time Peeta confessed his love to Katniss, I knew he was telling what was really in his heart. I just didn’t understand his reaction on the last part of book one. When I rethink about it, I know perhaps Katniss was the one who did not understand herself. Perhaps I am having a Katniss crossover at that time.

I adore Cinna and his creations.  They’re just amazing.

I am excited for the third book. I feel Gale will die, and if he won’t, Katniss will not choose him. I just wish Panem will be a much better place when the book ends.


***

Yes, I have read the third book. Gale did not die but I wish him dead. That would have been more honourable for him. I know it is wrong to wish for someone to die. Sorry, I take it back.

I know that I have written earlier that it was the love affair that kept me wanting to read the story. It was true. Now that I have read the entire series and have been thinking through the book, I feel that what hooked me to the books was the fact that Panem is where our civilization is going. And somehow, when I tell myself that I am/was hooked to the love story, I suddenly feel that I am like a Capitol citizen. Someone who loves being entertained, watching TV shows, movies, etc. Someone who would believe and “feel” that it is the real thing going on there in the TV screen.

I feel bad about that. Maybe that is why I first felt the book was boring. The districts of Panem were in turmoil. War has plagued them and they are trying to live a life that would avoid the war that they’ve been through.  So the districts agree and Capitol is sort of like their punisher. Capitol people host the Hunger Games. Capitol people do not realize that real lives are destroyed in a game which to them was entertainment.

District 13 may have been wanted to break away from that civilization and create a new world where everybody was equal, happy, and living sustainably. But, it was always the people who govern and lead that have some other agenda. President Coin clearly would have wanted the rest of Panem to stay in the miserable, poverty-stricken, hunger-filled state they were in as long as she was leading the country. As long as she has power. Doesn’t this situation sound so familiar?

Even in an imaginary future where Panem exists, the problem that they face is still as identical as what we have now. Poverty, hunger, inequality, reality TV shows, indifference, war, rebellion, a rallying point, loveteams. I was side-tracked by the loveteam, the star-crossed lovers, the rebels in the story who keep spouting these dreamy lines. In as distant time in the future where Panem exists, surely the same theme in TV shows would have made us puke and change the channel. But yeah, it is always interesting every time. Every time we believe that it is true. I know I did doubt Peeta in the beginning. But after one or two pages, I knew it was true. But in the real world, the real entertainment world, you’d be a Capitol citizen to believe it. 

Scribbles on Marcia Ford's A Conversation With God for Women

If I could ask God any question, What would it be?

This question got me. I'm in a point in my life right now where I tend to ask so many questions about life, the little things, almost anything, even about God. This is why I choose this book. I was hoping to have some things answered, cleared up, or even to just to pacify my ever questioning brain.

Conversations with God for Women highlights 50 questions that are mostly asked or wondered about by women, and maybe men too. Some questions are vague, or philosophical in nature, some are just too simple, you think to yourself that..'yeah, I wonder what's the answer to this.'

The book features questions like, If You love us, why do we suffer?, Do You really forgive and forget?, Do You hear everybody's prayers? Do we need to go to church? and so many more. The book is written indeed in conversation-style. Really like a Q&A portion. And we get two point of views, from God and Jesus. Biblical references are made everywhere in the book but they did not overwhelm me.

Being a teenager, I thought I could not ask these questions because asking meant and somehow implied that I do not trust God and that a believer should never question.

I know that sounds primitive, absurd, and like blindly following someone. I had that feeling, coupled with the things that is going in my mind, it was all a mess. I never read the bible as diligently as I should. There were things that I have missed, realizations and teachings that I should have known to make me stronger and maybe saner.

I first scanned through the book, taking that first smell [something only bookworms do :-)], and slowly as if every answer to my questions make sense. I found it calming and I sort of felt worry-free. As if someone is listening. As if now I know it was all for the better. That it's all gonna be better.

In line with the things that has recently occurred in my life, I really wanted to ask: "God, we all know Christians who suffer with terminal illness  or from overwhelming loss and tragic events in their lives. That seems so unfair; they often lived lives of total dedication to You; and they ended up in horrible situations. Why do Your followers have to suffer?"

Thank you, Marcia Ford, for making it simpler for me to understand it all.






I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 <http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/waisidx_03/16cfr255_03.html> : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

my alternate universe by the mulberry tree

You may call me Jown. And I live in an alternate universe, by a mulberry tree. It's fun here that's why I love to share my scribbles (thoughts) on books I've read, or even devoured.

 My alternate universe was created because I have always felt that I am "sort-of" taken into different worlds when I read. Aren't we all? Or, if this is not the case, it's as if I have awaken to a new way of looking at things in the universe I am already in.

Sometimes, no, most of the time, I write wholeheartedly on how a book made me feel. This is my alternate universe and my own experience in reading so expect everything to be personal. Isn't this how reading is supposed to be, eh?

Something special to note about my alt universe is that most of the books I read are bought second hand. Books really cost a lot in the alternate universe I am geographically in. So I am very grateful for the secondhand bookshops on this side of the planet.

Sadly, reading is not much given importance here.  Bookworms who totally read anything YA or in the children's section, even shampoo sachet labels are indeed rare!!

Scribbles on Mary Ryan's Glenallen

If there was a book that I disliked at first but greatly loved upon re-readings, it was Glenallen.

How I got the book

I got it when I was in high school, April 2004 to be exact. I do not know why, but I always had a dislike for thick books written by unfamiliar writers. I know it is so judgmental of me. I have mended my ways since. Perhaps it was the back cover story that got me. Because it talked about friends. :-)

The Story

The book was written by Mary Ryan. The plot of the story is similar to the drama series that are shown here in our country. Shows that narrates the birth until the death (if possible) or the happily ever after ending of the main character. That is why when I first read the story, I felt bland. I even think I skipped most of the middle pages when reading it first.

But it was in the second and subsequent re-readings that I grasped what the story was about and how it affected me ever since.

The story was set in rural Ireland during the second world war. There are three main leads in the story. They are three girls who met in boarding school, namely Peg, Cissie, and Mary.

Glenallen also shows that the lengths people will do in order to have something they want. Evil, evil things a person would do. The story also incorporates the superstitious beliefs and somewhat folklore in the land where Glenallen was built or derived from. I do not want to think of this part of the story because it is creepy and is somewhat parallel/similar with our country's own superstitions.

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Even writing this review makes me cringe on the things that happened in the story. From my point of view, the events are too typical in my teledrama-soaked brain. The people in the story just did have the most exciting childhood (I loved this part of the story), or they will have the most ridiculous twists in their later life loves. Gaaah!

And I have not even begun writing about the protagonists in the story. I cannot even. Grrrr!!

This is how affected I am.

Scribbles on Karen Hesse' Out of the Dust

The first book I've read after "the incident" is Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. I grabbed this book from a shelf at the children's section  in Booksale. After speed-reading the back cover ... Billie Jo... not a boy ... family ... dust ... piano... losing mom... and the P45 price tag, I thought it's worth a try since I haven't read a book for a long time now. I think I've seen this book in those shelves before but I have just been engrossed in other things that I did not buy Out of the Dust.

So, fast-forward to the afternoon after. I have finished reading the book. I was trying very hard not to shout out loud. I was in our office sleeping lounge. Obviously not sleeping,

Scribbles on Ann M. Martin's Here Today

I look for myself every time I read a book. So far, treating reading that way has been enriching. A huge part tells me that I perhaps lived in the moors of Ireland and played in a Secret Garden, or  I was a witch when I read the Harry Potter series. There are also books which allows us to examine our lives and downright points out the disagreeable, sad, harsh parts. Here Today by Ann M. Martin did just that. 

At first, I laughed off the title because it sound dramatic and I think the title has been used in numerous other novels. I cannot say that I am glad to have read the book. It is a family story. And I hate Doris Day Dingman!!! Why does she have to leave!! Argh!!!

turn off the lights and give yourself.... goosebumps

This is the GIF that I have made for my ode to RL Stine/Goosebumps night in tumblr.

I deliberately tried to scare myself, and failed miserably. Why? Because I have turned off the speakers just not to hear the audio clips. Omo.

I know, I am such a scaredy-cat.

tumblr post ~ more books

Books To Read

The Group by Mary McCarthy

Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Freak by Marcella Pixley

Little Audrey by Ruth White

How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found by Sara Nickerson

Chasing Redbird by Sharon Creech

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

BSC Friends Forever: Everything Changes by Ann M. Martin

Silent to the Bone by E.L. Konigsburg

The Famous Stanley Kidnapping Case by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Eleven Kids, One Summer by Ann M. Martin

The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares

Lyddie by Katherine Paterson

Jip His Story by Katherine Paterson

Whoa! These are a lot of books.  Most of which are in the children’s genre so they should be fast to read. If especially find comfort in reading these kinds of books, they seem to satisfy the child in me. I just feel that these kinds of books, so closely or sometimes even exactly describes things that I have realized, felt, experienced or noticed. These books aptly describes things I could not put my finger on, things that are at the tip of my tongue, things I wouldn’t ordinarily find words correct and concise enough to describe on my own.

Scribbles on Katherine Patterson's Lyddie

Summary:  Impoverished Vermont farm girl Lyddie Worthen is determined to gain her independence by becoming a factory worker in Lowell, Massachusetts, in the 1840s.

                Oh, my heart ached for Lyddie and the circumstances that made her life. But I know, Lyddie will achieve all that she had planned/intend to do in the last part of the book. :-;

                The story gripped me from the start. Despite the obvious physical tension (i.e. bear), the author managed to incorporate humour in this, and at the same time release another conflict/tension (i.e. mother’s illness).