An Honest ‘Girl Online’ Book Review

Title: Girl Online
Author: Zoe Sugg (and Siobhan Curham)
Hardcover: 344 pages

GoodReads rating: 3.81

When I had heard that Zoe Suggs would be writing and publishing a book of her very own I was excited. For about two years or so I’ve been following her blog and her vlogs on Youtube.

Watching her on Youtube, I would be lying if I didn’t say that I found her incredibly relatable. I’ve always felt like I have so many things in common with her. We’re the same age, we both have younger brothers who have incredibly similar personalities and we grew up with those terrible 90s neck chokers. So when the book was available, I immediately bought it off of BookDepository.com.

Before the book reached my doorstep, there was this whole news about how it was ghostwritten by above Siobhan Curham (this is a post she made in regards to the issue that you might want to read to clear the air on the false assumptions the media has made), a popular young adult writer who Zoe acknowledges at the end of her book. Penguin also confirmed that not all of the book was written by her. Hearing this news, I was torn. I was very torn because I, myself, yearn to one day be a writer and I wonder how it would feel like if I were ghostwriting and the book I wrote became a bestseller but the credit was never justifiably given to me and the words that I had written. At the same time, I felt indignant that online platforms – even Times news (why are you covering this?) – seemed to completely side-sweep the publisher, Penguin, and instead target Zoe – who they probably never heard of until this issue arose.

I had two responses when I heard this news. The short-term and immediate reaction was that I felt myself regretting having bought the book. I felt almost guilty. But then, maybe after a second-thought, I realised that because of all that was happening in regards to the issues of ghostwriting, I felt that it was even more necessary and relevant that I should read the novel.

Hence, the moment the hefty parcel reached my hands, just two days ago, I ripped it open and began digesting it. To avoid crediting where credit may not be due, I will address the novel itself instead of the author(s). I will, also, attempt to write as honestly as possible to how I felt about this novel – honest to both camps: those who love it and love Zoe and vehemently support and root for her, and those who are incredibly skeptical of the writing and believe that the story itself is garbage (which I believe it is not).

The first few chapters of Girl Online, and my first impression of it, was that it was palatable and the writing was decent. The character development was also pretty decent. The overall tone was quirky and easy to read.

I could tell that Penny, a sixteen-year-old student living in Brighton, aimed to be a girl with whom readers are immediately meant to identify with. She felt awkward, she was clumsy and shy and felt inadequate, and really wanted the approval of friends and family and boys.

Penny’s homosexual best friend, Elliot, was also someone with whom Zoe’s target readers should immediately love. When I read of him, I was immediately picturing Tyler Oakley in my head. And I wonder if that was intentional. I appreciated the random fun facts in the book and I honestly wish there had been more of that. I also wished there had been more exploration into who Elliot was as an individual and that he had not spent 80% of the novel hiding behind a mask of stereotypical “diva-fashionista-awesomeness” and comedic fluff.

Personally, I was still on board with the story, that is, till the point Penny and her family flew off to New York. The beginning story (without spoiling anything) attempted to tackle issues that I felt are close to any young person’s heart: bullying (esp. cyber-bullying), anonymity and problematic friendships.

It was in New York that the plot of the novel took a swift nosedive for me. It was FanFiction-esque: delusional and superficial. And I shall explain why I used these two negative adjectives as criticism. Maybe it is because I’m not the “hopeless romantic” type, and some (lovelorn teenagers) may disagree with what I am about to say next, but Penny and Noah’s love is a carbon copy of what many fangirls must envision in their heads when they picture themselves falling in love with their favourite boy band musician – regardless of whether they come from 1D or 5SOS. If anything, the romance between Penny and Noah is actually completely unnecessary for the primary message of the novel: that your words and actions can hurt, that you should think twice before saying them, and that no matter what, if things go terribly wrong, you should still love yourself and know that your family will support you.

So, for me, the Penny and Noah story in the middle of the novel was like the wrong stuffing in a roasted Christmas chicken dinner. Noah was in every way a stock character of the ideal rocker boy. His actions to romance Penny were the most cliched and at-the-top-of-your-head gestures that any boy could attempt to perform if they were willing to devote so much money and time for a girl. His little sister was every cliched angelically adorable attempt to make readers fall in love with her. There was little real about the family – including (dare I say it) the accident of Noah’s parents.

Getting that out of the way, there are moments where Girl Online does shine and communicates its message unexpectedly well. I won’t be ashamed to say that I teared up at some moments in the story – especially since many of the moments seem to parallel the reactions Zoe immediately got after the online communities and media platforms realised that her novel was ghostwritten.

The first time I teared was (and I specifically remember) on page 87. Shall not spoil here, but those who have the book or are reading it should know which part particularly, regarding cyber-bullying. It was an early moment and I believe that a previous incident that happened to me in the past triggered my empathy towards Penny at that particular moment. In today’s day and age, I also believe that this moment should affect a lot of other readers. It is kind of sad how many young people are affected by cyber-bullying, whether it be hateful messages online, “unglam” photos of them posted by people who do not like them, or being ostracised by a group of classmates on the internet.

The later “feels” occurred towards the end of the book around page 288-289. I have a soft spot for characters who are misunderstood or attacked by other individuals. So this part got to me.

I believe the message of the novel was strongest when aspects of who Zoe is as a person shone through. It is apparent that she had a clear role in creating this novel through certain minutiae: the line in which Christmas was her favourite time of the year, the father who is great at homey meals, the Margherita pizza and room service and the bath bombs – and many other things I can’t quite recall at the moment.

Lastly, I feel like I shouldn’t give my overall rating of this book, mostly because I am so torn as to what I should give it. In terms of plot and how it is written, it is comparable to those I read on FictionPress.com. Honestly, if I came across it on FictionPress.com, I would be happy to have found a decently written albeit cheesy plot for a story.

If there is anything you should treat this story as, in terms of story progression, it is a bag of chips – or cookies. It’s probably not good for you, but you want to eat it cause every so often you feel that biting into that chip makes you feel better and more satisfied as a human being. But, in all honesty, when you come out of finishing it, you have to admit to yourself that it probably was a whole bunch of No Good.

But, I can see where it is written from, and that there are good intentions in it and the issues that it attempts to address are still there. I believe that it could have been better if it focused more on those issues and less on romance. Those moments that I previously mentioned were the moments that shined for me and that were the most heartfelt.

Regardless of how wishy-washy the writing process of this novel was, I am still proud of Zoe for how she managed this novel and the criticisms that followed. It is honestly the most beautiful covered book I own at the moment – except maybe my new signed copy of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. And I love how it looks on my bookshelf. So, at the end of the day, I have no regrets buying it. It was honestly the perfect light-hearted read I needed for Christmas.

And, in regard to the entire issue of how the book was ghostwritten and how some have gone up in arms about it, I quote this part of the novel:

I sit on the edge of my bed, staring at my phone in terror. I picture people all over the world reading about me, posting hate-filled messages about me. People I don’t know. People who’ve never even met me.

This was written in the perspective of Penny – but I also believe that it is written very much so in the perspective of Zoe now. I don’t know why, but I feel incredibly protective of her as a person. I can’t imagine what she might be feeling or going through, but I feel that contempt is never justified if you are not personally involved in the situation. I feel like there are many times that we have been prematurely judged by others, and some times where we are unaware that we prematurely judge in return. I guess, the only suggestion I wish to make (not just for others out there but also as a reflection of my own) is to be more sensitive with words and how they may affect others. It’s easy to type blankly into a screen. It is harder to empathise and understand who you are communicating to and the effect your words may have on others.

(I believe that my last paragraph there is an attempt to not only summarise the message of the book but also the irony of the situation in relation to the book and the issues arising from the book in its entirety.)

Lastly, on a more positive (and less convoluted) note: this is the 25th book I’ve read for this year – which means that I completed my goal to read 25 books this year! And I’m so proud of myself now for having been able to accomplish this in light of how busy this year has been. 😀

Also, maybe as a post-postscript (P.P.S), I hope you don’t mind that I posted a Saturday’s Inklings on a Sunday/Monday (depending on your time zone) – and that I wrote it at 2am in the morning for me, which probably explains why this review is not as organised as I probably want it to be.

But I felt it was necessary to get all these words out before I forget them.

Till next time,

cumuloq ❤

Thank You, Maya Angelou

Credits to womenscouncil.org

Maya Angelou’s death, this year, on May 28th 2014, never really struck me deep. At that point in time, earlier this year, her name was one among many authors and poets that I had heard in passing, acknowledged but never really took the time to know of. So when it was informed, only three words passed through my mind: “That’s a pity.” And life went on.

It was not until recently that I began reading her novel, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I chose to read it (and am still reading it) because I thought it was a nice transition from when I previously read the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Like the protagonist in Speak, Marguerite Johnson in Angelou’s novel deals with selective mutism.

And, because I’m reading it (excruciatingly slowly), last week I came across a particular paragraph from the novel that really struck me. In the novel, the young protagonist is made to go to a funeral of a Mrs. Florida Taylor. It begins (and captures my attention) at these lines:

At first the news that Mrs. Taylor was dead did not strike me as particularly newsy bit of information. As children do, I thought that since she was very old she had only one thing to do, and that was to die.

At this point in the story, I felt guilty as these words somehow resonated to me about anyone who was elderly – that the next predictable destination was death and that there was nothing to it.

Angelou then writes this:

The inevitable destination of all living things seemed but a short step away. I had never considered before that dying, death, dead, passed away, were words and phrases that might be even faintly connected with me.

But, on that onerous day, oppressed beyond relief, my own mortality was borne in upon me on sluggish tides of doom.

It felt – and I can’t quite summon the perfect adjective to describe it – unnerving reading these words, especially from an author who had only recently married herself to those terms “dying, death, dead, [and] passed away” … I sat there reading those words as if Angelou spoke to me from those pages. (And this is me reflecting on how words are as though we time travel both to the future where we no longer exist as authors and to the past to have conversations with the dead.)

Credits go to principalaim.files.wordpress.com

I reflected on how, writing those words, Angelou never fully pictured herself gone from this earth and the words on the page speaking on her behalf. And I imagined the same of myself – how right now I can’t imagine those words connected to myself but inevitably they will be.

(Well, aren’t we funny creatures to so vehemently – my new favourite adverb – protest and proclaim the impossibility of our deaths … until we are dead and gone?)

When I read those words on my bed I almost teared. I felt as though the tides had turned, that I was Marguerite Johnson attending the funeral of Mrs. Taylor.

And personally, I feel like now’s better late then never to thank Maya Angelou for her poetic words and for her accomplishments and milestones in literature as a “Phenomenal Woman”.

I only wish I had read and known you sooner. Reading your novel now, I feel as though I relate to you in a million small insignificant yet all too significant ways. And so I quote one of your recent passages that plucked my heart out of its chest while I was reading on the bus earlier; while it was directed for the black community, I feel like anyone who has felt in the position of the minority can share the sentiments written in your words …

It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us.

Till next time.

cumuloq ❤

 

 

P.S. Looking through her photos on Google Image search and writing these words almost did make me cry. This is my personal belated mourning of a marvellous woman – but hopefully it is more heartfelt to have gotten to know her through the pages of her book and then said goodbye than to have said words that only now I realise I truly mean from deep down within my heart (and may I add, soul).

What I Read and Why I Read

Previously I wrote the post “What I Write and Why I Write” – I thought it was about time that I wrote the companion post to it, “What I Read and Why I Read”. It kind of helps that one of my recent class assignments was to write about this. Below is the modified version of it – I have taken none of the substance away, just beefed it up in certain areas.

I was always a library camper, whether it be in my school or communal libraries. From the age of seven I knew how to reserve books, how to borrow wisely till the maximum amount I’m allowed to carry back home in my heavy library canvass bag, and how to read the shelves and find my favourite authors and genres.

theliterarygiftcompany.com

theliterarygiftcompany.com

theliterarygiftcompany.com

If there was one crime I ever actually committed when I was a kid, it was accidentally stealing a library book from my school – I vaguely remember it being about Santa Claus. I devoured books by Mem Fox, Libby Gleeson, Enid Blyton such as The Magic Faraway Tree and Jacqueline Wilson’s Double Act. My school in Australia had a subscription to Scholastics and I bought books every month – much to the frustration of my parents.

A few years later on I’d giggle at the trivial hilarity of The Bugalugs Bum Thief and Captain Underpants, and delved into classics such as Jack London’s The Call of the Wild and Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women. (I got the exact covers of the books I actually read below.)

When I was eleven in Perth, Australia, my teacher, Mrs Daventry, introduced my class to a life-changing novel called Alanna: The First Adventure written by Tamora Pierce. The character, Alanna, was probably my first proper fantasy heroine.

Prior to being exposed to the genre of fantasy, I mostly entertained myself with Jeanne Betancourt’s Pony Pals and Francine Pascal’s Sweet Valley High. Mrs Daventry one day caught me in class reading the latter and I remember specifically that she called it “junk food”. She then proceeded to tell me of a book store in our neighbourhood where I could get discounts for good books. Learning from her was such a joy. With every book we read, we learnt about the history behind them, the vocabulary that surrounded them and the characteristics we aspired towards.

When the doors of the fantasy genre gaped wide open I never looked back. I devoured the genre, reading series after series by authors such as J.K. Rowling, Lemony Snicket, Gail Carson Levine, Philip Pullman, Garth Nix, Libba Bray, James Patterson and Dianna Wynne Jones. For me reading was very much escapist in nature. Coupled with sketching and writing, my twelve-year-old self created worlds that were imitations of the characters, plots and settings I read. The fantasy worlds shaped much of how I saw the world when I was young, filled with magical potential and gateways to alternative realms. That’s why I identify so closely to the narrator of Gaiman’s novel:

“I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.” – Unknown Narrator, The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

My purpose for reading altered when my parents made the decision that we would move to another country. There, I admit books were my shields to the curious eyes of my new, strange classmates. For a decent year, because of my introverted disposition, my confidantes at the time were mostly the characters in the novels I read and the stories I created.

In my new school I was introduced to more canonical works, such as that of Shakespeare. There we tackled Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Merchant of Venice. Other novels included Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days (which I memorised more than understood) and Robert Louis Stevensons’ Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (which I found fascinating till this day). It was also during that time that I got enraptured by culturally-stemmed beliefs – spiritual myths of seances and ghost visitations. A lot of the books I read during that time were dark – but not necessarily scary. Like how a child may be more fascinated than terrified of Coraline, I was more fascinated than terrified of the world beyond the grave.

It was when I moved country once more and underwent a tertiary education that my reading for pleasure habit slowly dwindled. There I was introduced to some of my favourite novels such as Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But it was also where I learned to grapple with R.K. Narayan’s The Guide – a book which, till this day, still reduces me to coughing up bile.

It was also during this period where literature transformed into something I loved to something which I no longer understood. I was forced to wrangle with poetry in a void. I was mostly silent in class, petrified to give the “wrong answer”. Reading for pleasure was bulldozed away and in its place was planted desperations of not failing, and not being alone.

And maybe my saving grace was giving literature a second chance and choosing it as my degree. During my four years in uni, I could once again engage with and discover newfound love in other literary genres. It was in uni that I fell in love with novels such as Ian McEwan’s Atonement, Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, and Jean Rhys’ Good Morning, Midnight.

My main interests during that time lay in (post- and) modernism, feminism and Gothic literature. I decided to combine two of them for my FYP and wrote about representations of the living dead in women – It was also an excuse for me to analyse Resident Evil.

However, I can’t quite say that during those four years I read for pleasure. My reading during that time was limited to the reading lists of the courses I took. So the final stage of my reading journey thus far was during my eight months of contract teaching. Thanks to this blog (and also from creating an account on Goodreads.com), I managed to finally read for pleasure and read whatever I wanted to – the way I did when I was eleven.

I first of all started with the Young Adult fiction that I missed out on during my uni days, i.e. Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy. This was followed by Veronica Roth’s Divergent trilogy, John Green books, i.e. The Fault in Our Stars, Looking For Alaska, and Paper Towns, Stephen Chbosky’s Perks of Being a Wallflower, Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why, James Dashner’s The Maze Runner trilogy and Lois Lowry’s The Giver.

Of course, I didn’t spend all my reading time catching up with YA. I also delved in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and Neverwhere. It was safe to say that during those eight months I read and completed more books in my spare time than during the six years within the rigid education system of my new homeland.

At the end of the day, reading for me has always been a means for me to understand and see different perspectives to the world. It was a means to make sense of things that no longer made sense. The covers were my shields, the characters: my friends, the enemies: a representation of the challenges I should be tackling. At the end of the day I would not be the person I am without books. It’s a shame that reading today is less than it was – less time for books, less words in books, more competition for attention among the million other attention-grabbing devices out there in this world.

I offer anyone who is willing to share their reading journey to send me a link to theirs in the comment section below! Let us all preserve the pastime and love of reading together!

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

 

Disclaimer: The book covers featured are not mine and belong to their respective owners. I take no credit for any of the photos featured in this blog post.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane Review

Title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Author: Neil Gaiman
Hardcover: 181 pages

GoodReads rating: 4.01
Personal rating: 4 out of 5 stars

On Wednesday, what I first intended to be me returning a book (The Death Cure by James Dashner) to the library, ended up with me, like the unnamed (I only realised this after googling the book – I hadn’t realised it throughout the book that the narrator was not named) narrator of Gaiman’s novel, unknowingly yet almost deliberately hovering towards the adult section to pick up the only (shameful) Neil Gaiman novel that stood on the lower rungs of the shelf, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I’ll frankly admit here that this is the first Gaiman novel I’ve picked up. The only exposure I (knowingly) have had before reading this novel was watching the films Stardust and Coraline – and that’s almost like picking second-hand scraps from an author’s writings.

That day, I had time to kill, so I went up to the second floor of the library, where a quiet reading section lay behind walls of glass, as though readers here were extinct animals put up on exhibition, and chose a seat that looked over at the trees and grass that sat behind the library. Honestly, I chose it ’cause the sun was nicely warming that area and I knew I would get cold after a while of reading. I then started, like every other reader does, on the first sentence.

I really did not know what to expect, having both never read Gaiman’s books and having read from the young adult section rather than the adult section for a long time. And I almost felt sheepish at having expected a “grown-up” book. Actually, these lines in the book suited my sentiments while reading it exactly (most likely purposefully so):

“I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped up in adult bodies, like children’s books hidden in the middle of dull, long adult books, the kind with no pictures or conversations.”

If anything, the novel (expectedly so) had the same stylistics and plot devices as Coraline did – a blur between the lines of imagination and reality, a display of how a child’s world is both real and unreal and how stories traverse the boundaries between the two.

Summarising the plot, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is about an unnamed narrator who revisits his childhood neighbourhood. He decides to pay a visit to a particular lane where, at the end of it, is a pond, a pond which a childhood friend named Lettie used to call an “ocean”. There, he recalls memories of himself as a seven-year-old boy, memories he had not previously remembered and a story which I found more fascinating than haunting, though there are undertones of suicide, attempted homicides, and sexual affairs mingled among the magic.

When it came out, the book debuted at number one on The New York Times best seller list and last year was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards. It was also GoodReads’ Choice 2013 Winner.

Personally, I loved this story, otherwise I probably would not be writing a review of it. I usually only write reviews of books that I am inspired by. If I had read it during the time of the 30 Day Book Challenge, I probably would have chosen the unnamed narrator as my most relatable character, who buried himself in books of Narnia and Alice in Wonderland, who tried to understand the world around him through the books he read:

“Growing up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about what people did, about how to behave. They were my teachers and my advisers.”

and

“I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.”

I really never expected a seven-year-old boy to speak so many truths about how I see the world. But Gaiman captured perfectly in words how I felt about myself as an individual and how I also saw other human beings:

“I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”

I relate so much to this quote ’cause I’ve understood for a long time that I will always be that nine-year-old self I was – as if that part of me is the smooth pebble stone and, accumulated over the years, is a thick layer of debris – the debris being culturally-imposed ideals and expectations and burdens – but underneath all that debris, I’m still a small smooth pebble.

So, what did I overall think of the novel? Let’s say I loved the first half of it thoroughly. I loved when Lettie took the narrator out into the fields and woods and the entire “worm hole” part. I loved (and hated) the moment when Ursula turned up to take care of the narrator and his sister – it felt like Matilda trapped in the house of Miss Trunchball.

However, I can’t really say that I liked Ursula’s true form, of the fabric with torn eyes, or her hovering in the sky – I felt less terrified than the seven-year-old narrator during those confrontational scenes. Maybe it’s because Gaiman does not give me enough palpable descriptions of her, or my imagination for horror is not as it used to be.

Also, the entire novel creates a lot of suspense and mystery towards what the “varmint”s were – and I kind of found myself less than terrified of them than I was of Ursula. So, because of these reasons I suppose, I preferred the first half of the novel to the second half. The ending however, was quite perfect. It tied the book together in a nice little string bow. It was especially perfect ’cause I turned to the next page, where the acknowledgment section lay, and read this line: “This book is the book you have just read. It’s done. Now we’re in the acknowledgments. This is not really part of the book. You do not have to read it. It’s mostly just names.” Actually, this line made me smile like a goofy idiot in the middle of the library.

At the end of the day, I say definitely give the novel a shot, especially if you’ve watched Coraline and found the narrative of that film captivating. And especially if you need some form of escapism. This book gave me a journey in the four hours I spent reading it. The writing is gorgeous and Gaiman understands a child’s mind so well – how things that cannot be understood are given different forms and names, and how sometimes a parent’s disapproval is more terrifying than the monsters a child creates in his or her own imagination.

Otherwise, if you are not a book person, I’m sure you’ll only have to wait a year or two for it to be made into a film, as it is currently in development in becoming one thanks to Focus Features, which bought the rights to the novel earlier last year. Personally, I can’t wait to see how Ursula and the varmint translate on screen. I personally hope they are more terrifying.

Also, let me know what Gaiman novels you suggest I read next! Or if there are any novels that are similar that are worth reading. For now, I’ve picked up Ann Leckie’s Ancilliary Justice from the library and that is my current novel.

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 30: Your favorite book of all time

Hi everyone!

Oh wow, the last day of the 30DBC! I will be posting up an overview/recap later today of everything I’ve chosen for this challenge. So look out for that! But, for the last time in this challenge, let me remind you to check out Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog for her all-time favourite book. We both thank you for reading and following us through. And if you are ever interested in taking part in this challenge yourself in the future, let me know so I can, in turn, check yours out!

Now, for my favourite book. I’m going to rewind a bit here all the way back to Day 17, where I was made to choose my favourite quote from my favourite book. For those who read it, I quoted this: “A river of words flowed between us.”

It’s a simple enough quote, nothing really too remarkable about it, honestly. But this is was the phrase that stuck out the most when I read my favourite book.

Here, let me give you the full quote that led up, and pass it:

As the weeks continued to pass, Art3mis and I spent more and more time together. Even when our avatars were doing other things, we were sending e-mails and instant messages to each other. A river of words flowed between us.

I wanted more than anything to meet her in the real world. Face-to- face. But I didn’t tell her this. I was certain she had strong feelings for me, but she also kept me at a distance. No matter how much I revealed about myself to her—and I wound up revealing just about everything, including my real name—she always adamantly refused to reveal any details about her own life … My whole relationship with Art3mis was in defiance of all common sense.

And where is this from?

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Yes, and I actually wrote a book review of this right before doing the 30 Day Book Challenge. So essentially, we’ve come full circle.

There are so many geeky reasons why I love this book so much, and how it has so easily climbed up my list of favourites, which includes Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher”, to make it to the top.

Ready Player One is a story about Wade Watts, a boy who lives in absolute poverty, in a world that is completely neglected and left to ruin. People instead, in this society, escape into a virtual world aptly named as the OASIS. The story kicks off when the creator of the OASIS, Halliday, dies and leaves behind clues and a game for a potential successor who will inherit his fortune and the OASIS for themselves. Wade is determined to find the easter egg that Halliday has created within the OASIS. This story tells of To check out more of what the book is about and my general (unbiased) review of it, click on the link above.

There were so many times during the 30dbc that I wanted to mention some parts of this book. It is by far one of my favourite books this year, I hope to someday read it at least three times (and hear it a million more in its audio version – which is read by Will Wheaton! Will freakin’ Wheaton!), there was an entire section that made me laugh like an idiot, there were bitter realisations that struck me deep and it honestly contains some of my favourite characters – some with amazing plot twists.

I mean, this book references so many 80s music it makes an entire soundtrack, one that you can actually look up and go listen to. It references so many movies that you can have an 80s marathon. It references so many games, you can totally geek out to them over an entire afternoon. It is even freakin’ meta, ’cause Cline created his own easter hunt game from the book that people are actually listed as winners of. So to me, this book is not just a book, you do not read it, you experience it.

Recently I watched WarGames (shown below) for the first time which was referenced in this book – and it was awesome.

I love some of Cline’s technological inventions in the game. My favourite being FlickSync – which is basically like karaoke but instead you are a character in your favourite movie and when you recite the right lines (especially in the right tone and with the right action) you get points. The object of the game is to recite the lines as well as possible to get the highest score. Wouldn’t you love to have that in real life?

Another reason why I love the book is that it is so neatly laid out in terms of plot – find the three keys and unlock the three gates and you’ll get Halliday’s ultimate prize. Yet, at the same time, there are so many thrilling moments, sometimes you forget about the plot entirely. Personally, I found it such an immersive experience.

Ultimately what I love about it is that, even though Wade is entirely engulfed by pop culture, by technological advancement, by games, Cline does not fail to reveal the double-edged sword of the world he has created. Every moment I am in awe at the beauty of the OASIS, I am also reminded that Wade is incredibly alone, incredibly poor and incredibly lost. He grew up in this virtual world – and while you admire the technology, you pity him.

So Ready Player One is definitely my favourite book – it was everything Ender’s Game failed to be. It showed promise the very first time I saw the cover of it and I was not disappointed in the least when I finally read it. The only problem now is that I’m in the search of an equally enticing sci-fi novel.

Till next time,

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 29: A book everyone hated but you liked

Hi everyone!

So, this is the penultimate day of the 30DBC, if you have been reading all – or heck, most – of my posts for this challenge so far, I thank you for following along. Even more so if you’ve also been following Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog.

Today’s challenge is on the book I liked that everyone else hated. Personally, I don’t think this scenario exists. Unless you did like Twilight. Otherwise, it’s pretty much impossible for everyone to hate a certain book. There will always be the classic book camp and there will always be the teen novel camp, and those in between, and one may hate the other but mutual hate does not really exist. And if it did, there is a strong likelihood that I hated that book to, so that’s pretty much a moot point.

So the closest situation I could think of in which there was a text I liked but everyone seemed to hate is …

Self Reliance and Other Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

Okay, so let me begin with my story: It was the first year in uni and we had to read Emerson’s essays early in the semester for one week for my American Literature course. And, like the diligent student I am, I read them, specifically “Self-Reliance”, “Circles” (by accident, even though it wasn’t on the reading list but it was so good), “The Poet” and “History”, and I just remembered being sent into a transcendentalist journey.

The essays are like 19th century self-help or self-exploration articles. They spoke of living in the moment, being satisified with the person you are and to not be over-involved in the concerns of society but instead to be appreciative of what is around you.

And then I had to go for the lecture that week to discuss it, and I was so excited to discuss the philosophy behind it – and, to my utter astonishment, it seemed like everyone there just absolutely hated it.

They could not read past half a page, they did not understand anything Emerson was saying, they did not like the fact that there really was a clear argument to his essays (although that is not what essays are always about!) or they just did not like transcendentalism as a whole. And I could not understand it – who could not agree with what Emerson says? Even in the most superficial sense of his words?

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say “I think,” “I am,” but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance and Other Essays

To me, there are so many passages quotable from Emerson’s essays and so many concepts to reflect upon. But, I can, to some extent, understand their qualms with his writing. Emerson does not write in the most direct manner – sometimes you lose the point in his speech – you forget what exactly he is trying to say, he crafts sentences in squiggles rather than straight lines.

But isn’t that the point of it? It’s to not to be concerned with what has passed or what is in the future, but to live in the words themselves.

I would recommend anyone to try reading one of Emerson’s essays (Here, let me provide a link) – sit down in a comfortable place, preferably near a window that looks out at some greenery, and with a nice warm cup of coffee and tea, and just read. They aren’t long, and they don’t take long to read (they take longer to think about), and they are a goldmine of beautiful quotes and reflections.

So, I’ll catch you guys tomorrow for the finale – the last challenge of the 30 Day Book Challenge.

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 28: Favorite title

Hi guys!

It’s becoming all too real now, that this 30 Day Book Challenge is almost over. And today I’m covering my favourite title, which is …

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

I took this challenge as my ideal title for a novel, a title that just summarises everything perfectly, a title that just resonates, a title you cannot forget. I have to say that from the first time I heard of the title, The Bell Jar, I fell in love with it. It intrigued me. And yes, they say that you should not judge a book by its cover, and that includes its title, but I would be lying if I said I do not go into the bookstores and scan the shelves, and stroke the spines of books for wonderful titles. The more mystique it holds, the more it just captivates me. And The Bell Jar did just that.

“What is a bell jar? And what does the story have to do with one?”

And then, in one of my uni courses, I had the absolute pleasure to finally read it, and find out …

To the person in the bell jar, blank and stopped as a dead baby, the world itself is a bad dream.” 

and

because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar, stewing in my own sour air.” 

and, lastly,

But I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure at all. How did I know that someday―at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere―the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn’t descend again?” 

Firstly, a bell jar is exactly how you would imagine it to be, an upside down jar, shaped like a bell that creates a vacuum effect. It preserves whatever is in it; anything within remains trapped in time and space, separated from the outside world. And this image is perfect for the protagonist, Esther Greenwood, who suffers from clinical depression.

She feels absolutely confined in this metaphorical bell jar, stuck within her own head. Every day to her is one of stagnant, stale thoughts, with no escape.

I love the metaphor because it shows how you can still be stuck in your head yet others can barely see it – you can still look at society (although through somewhat distorted images), and they can still see you. There is nothing apart there that is hindering an individual from being a member of society. Yet at the same time you know you will never be a part of them, you will never feel like them, and they, in turn, knowing your condition, will see you as something fragile and something that will not be a part of them.

Hence, the title is perfect – it reflects someone trapped. It calls to those who feel trapped in a pocket within society – which is obviously any individual. ‘Cause I know I definitely feel that I will never feel like everyone else in society. I, by no means, have the same aspirations and wants as everyone else in society. But then, doesn’t everyone share the same sentiments? Yet at the same time, aren’t we all reluctant to voice this out? Then, aren’t we all sort of living separate bubbles of lives with distorted thoughts of one another? It’s just so compelling to think of the world like this.

Even more so, it’s compelling to think that, since we were born, we are able to think an infinite number of thoughts yet in a finite way – in our way. And the same thoughts that strike us the most keep swimming in our head. And if we are never inspired by anything, then these same thoughts will continue to dangerously float in our heads. And we sit there, among our thoughts, ruminating, as they stifle us like tiny droplets of humidity that cling on the inner surface of the bell jar.

And – I think after those two paragraphs – it is evident that the title, The Bell Jar, is able to manifest so many different images in one’s mind. And this is the reason why it is one of my favourite titles. It is one subtle metaphor, but it is a powerful one. I think Sylvia Plath would have been proud to have grown mushrooms (referencing a Plath poem here: “Perfectly voiceless, / Widen the crannies”, and not drugs) in my mind.

So, for more wonderful titles, go take a look at Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog. And I’ll catch you tomorrow for the penultimate challenge.

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 27: The most surprising plot twist or ending

Hi guys!

So here’s another 30 Day Book Challenge. Today I’ll be looking at a book I’ve read with the most surprising plot twist or ending. Actually I’m thankful to have read a few books with incredible plot twist endings. I’m thankful because I’ve decided to turn this into more of a category list instead of a description of one book’s plot twist. I thought this would be best because I really don’t want to divulge the plot twist of these books. I’d rather not write down spoilers. Instead, I’d rather list down these books, hint at the plot twist and have you guys read them yourselves and get absolutely blown away by them.

So, here are the books …

1. Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Yes, I mentioned this book again but honestly this novel has the #1 plot twist! I did not expect to see it coming and, unlike some novels where the ending is a stretch, this one just fits in so well. Palahniuk should write detective novels. The beauty of this plot twist, after knowing it, changes the entire story – and not just for the events after, it changes everything you’ve read from the first page onwards. And isn’t that something remarkable? When you can literally never read this book the same way you did the first time you did. Yes, that is the magnitude of the Fight Club plot twist. You remember it for the rest of your life.

2. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

Honestly, when reading this plot twist when I was a child, I thought J.K. Rowling was a genius – and I felt like an absolute dingbat – and a judgemental idiot. I feel like I can reveal this spoiler because so many people have either read or watched this, but then again, I’ll just keep it as a known secret between me and you, the reader who has read it. I know there are many plot twists that appear after this novel – but honestly, this was the first one that had me stunned. And the one I shall mention now.

3. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Yes, another book I’ve already mentioned – actually in the book that disappointed me challenge. But, regardless of whether it disappointed me or not (only cause I expected it to be better than the movie), you can’t deny that the ending is a shocker and has so many implications to it. The fact that the General pulled a fast one on both Ender and the readers is worth the read. And I heard that the follow-up book had another plot twist in it as well worth reading.

4. Atonement by Ian McEwan

The ending to Atonement is heart-wrenching – and the novel’s ending and the movie’s ending are different, and they are equally heart-wrenching plot twists. At one point in time Atonement was my favourite novel. The plot twist at the end was part of the reason why. The movie’s gorgeous soundtrack is part of the reason why too.

So those are my top four favourite plot twist novels. I would recommend anyone read these novels just for their amazing endings. Please go check out Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog as well for more books with plot twist endings!

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 26: A book that changed your opinion about something

Hello everyone!

And thank you for following me as I complete the last few days of this 30 Day Book Challenge with my fellow blogger, Rhey of Sunshine. Today’s challenge is all about the book that has changed my opinion of something.

What I want to first express is how I am incredibly thankful of the course I decided to pursue for college. Many people may censure Literature as a major with few prospects. But the truth is that when I took up the course I wasn’t concerned with what occupation it would get me in society.

Probably, just like a literature student, my mindset was more of how “it’s all about the journey, not the destination”. And I believe one of the most crucial journeys I went on during my uni days was an exploration of how to view the world in a new way through a multitude of texts.

If there was any text that challenged my viewpoint on a subject, it would have to be …

The Passion of New Eve by Angela Carter

It is the story of Evelyn, a young Englishman, and it is set in dystopian United States where civil war has broken out between different political, racial and gendered groups.

This dark satire takes the reader along a journey through the mythology of sexuality and questions the primitive notions of gender. 

It is a story of how Evelyn is transformed into a woman, Eve, by an all-women’s society in the desert, and, along with this transformation, he learns the constructed ideals that entail his new gender. To prepare him for the sex change, they have him watch videos on mothering and women’s fashion.

The story also introduces the ancient Tristessa, a famous movie star with a haunting secret. She is the crush of Evelyn since he was a little boy. And she is the walking embodiment of everything false with normative genders.

I believe that if I had not been studying feminism at that point in time, this book would have been a horrific and demanding read. The text as a whole is difficult to swallow because of the stark sexual imagery present (I believe this is made evident from its provocative cover) – which is partially why it made such an impact on me to begin with. This book is hard to forget.

If one were to just read this book without any context to it, I would believe it is easy to feel offended by it. Everything in this book is a suggestive (or very obvious) sin. But if you look beyond the sinful actions of the characters within this novel, the undeniable question is: Why are we offended? And the answer is probably because we have been taught to be.

Proposition one: time is a man, space is a woman.” 
― Angela Carter, The Passion of New Eve

If there is one thing this novel achieves, it is to persuade the reader to absolutely destroy their preconceived semantics of what a woman and man should be, and why these boundaries are so integral for us to function in society. This is alluded by completely extracting the protagonist from the urban landscape to the desert – a landscape that is ironically a plethora of metaphors for the necessities to remove all remnants of symbolism, signification, implication and, yes, metaphor.

Carter ultimately attempts to disconcert the reader thoroughly. What you know of what makes up a man and a woman is no more than what your parents, your teachers and even you yourself has been ascribing to.

And here I move on to the scene that is as equally sinful as it is thought-provoking. After Evelyn is transformed into a woman, upon which he is enslaved by a man named Zero and his seven slave/wives, he meets Tristessa, a movie star he had been admiring for her sensual features, in a glass palace. Zero discovers, by trying to expose Tristessa’s private parts, that she is actually a man. Zero then forces both Eve and Tristessa to act out a mock-wedding after which he insists that they “consummate their marriage”.

It is here that Carter presents to the readers a unique and entirely singular scenario: Eve is a man in a female’s body, with now female genitalia, and Tristessa is a man in a woman’s body with male genitalia; Eve was once a man in society, he used to be in a position of illusionary power, but he has been recently stripped of any power. Meanwhile, Tristessa as a female movie star is objectified and sexualised, but the truth is that she is a man.

The Passion of New Eve blurs the lines between sex and gender differences and puts into contention the chicken-and-egg question, which came first? Is our perceptions of what makes us men and women determined by our sex, or is it growing up with these gender stereotypes that we then force these ideals on the sex?

Growing up, I always assumed that there was a clear logic that the role of men and women in society was always determined by biology – this book made me question how much of our stereotypes can we attribute to our sex. And when can we stop blaming the way we see gender roles on our past generations, when can we start being more perceptive of how meaning originates, sometimes, from the most biased origins of culture and religion?

As a whole this novel made me more open-minded towards the idea of gender as something absolutely abstract – and here I quote Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire …

So, till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 25: A character who you can relate to the most

Hey everyone!

So it’s the weekends, and I’m here with another 30DBC. And today I’m here to talk about a character who I can relate to the most. What is so tricky about today’s challenge is that I thought it would be easy; I thought that when it came to sitting down and writing this one, I would have a character in mind, one at the very top of my head.

And I did have some immediate go to characters that I considered. Firstly, I considered Hermione Granger – ’cause she was my go to favourite female character for good reason, I saw a lot of her very obvious traits as my own. I considered Antoinette Cosway of Wide Sargasso Sea, as she had many traits regarding relationship and her affinity to her homeland that I found similar to myself. I even, for a point in time, considered Bella Swan of Twilight, because, face it, Meyers wrote her character as blandly as possible so that every teenage girl who read it could see herself in Bella Swan – Meyer’s description of Bella can be likened to fortune telling or palm reading – it can be interpreted in any way according to the reader. 

I didn’t relate well to people my age. Maybe the truth was that I didn’t relate well to people, period. Even my mother, who I was closer to than anyone else on the planet, was never in harmony with me, never on exactly the same page. Sometimes I wondered if I was seeing the same things through my eyes that the rest of the world was seeing through theirs. Maybe there was a glitch in my brain.”- Twilight

The easiest characters to consider as relatable are those of young adult series – mostly because their main function to their readers is to appear as relatable as possible. So they write about a teenage girl with brown hair and a shy demeanour until you get to know her – as that it is a vague enough and relevant enough representation of the mass of their readership. They write about a girl who loves books and music – ’cause it is evident that any teenage girl who is reading loves novels and maybe hopes to write them in the future and it is positively unheard of for a girl to not love some sort of music, the more obscure the better. Come on, you know what I’m talking about. The girl who thinks she’s average but hopes that everything thinks she’s beautiful and smart. Just add in some sassy lines and everyday routines – “Oh look! I eat cereal in the morning half-asleep and dreading school too!” It is the character deliberately created to be a mirror of the reader.Yet, at the same time it is terrible to suggest that the more vague the description of the character, the more prone they are to daily habits of normalcy, the more we feel they are like us. Shouldn’t we all be unique and therefore identify ourselves with those characters that are “uniquely” like us?

The difficulty with this challenge is that, at any point in time of reading a protagonist in a story, I have the habit of getting absolutely lost in their world, the friends they share, the hobbies they love and the goal they work towards.

Sometimes I find myself more than one type of person. One day I’m the outspoken and brash young heroine, the next the shy and hesitant loner that sits in the back of the class. I ask myself, how can I be more than one type of person? And maybe that’s the beauty of books. That you can be more than one type of person. And, I believe, any good book should reflect a protagonist that is relatable – no matter how flawed or deplorable they are, there needs to be some sort of resignation that you share some of their characteristics. It is the ability to prove to readers that even the most evil of individuals have a motive that we ourselves could have at any point in our future.

After careful consideration, and because I have the habit to slip into the character I read, I guess the characters I identify the most with are those that I am currently reading – as prosaic as that may sound. It’s usually the characters that I am currently sharing their experiences with that I empathise the most with, because they are currently in my immediate literary proximity. So, for today’s post, I shall be highlighting the character of …

Quentin “Q” Jacobsen from Paper Towns by John Green

I rushed to finish this book by this week so I could write this. Quentin is the current character I attempted to put myself in his shoes, and it is kind of apt that I am writing about how relatable a character can be because the entire novel of Paper Towns centers on how much you can know a person and how much you can try to put yourself in the shoes of that person and understand how they feel.

If you’re unfamiliar with the story of Paper Towns, let me summarise it for you. Quentin has a childhood friend called Margo. They used to be great friends as kids but as they grew up they drifted apart into their own cliques, Margo in the popular clique, Quentin cast off into geekdom – you know the tried-and-true cliched fable. Then one night, Margo calls on Quentin to go on a night time revenge prank adventure with her. The next day she disappears for good. Quentin is then left to try to piece the clues Margo apparently left behind for him alone.

Let me first state that John Green characters are made to be relatable to any angst-ridden teen – if there were any go-to relatable characters out there, I suggest his books. Albeit many of the characters however are portrayed with far too much teenage tropes and stereotypes …

Personally I did not like Looking for Alaska because Alaska sounded like a total – well, yeah, you know what I’m getting at – Alaska was a facile representation of a college girl – drop-dead gorgeous body and a dirty suggestion that she was, under all the denim shorts and singlets, intelligent. Margo, in Paper Towns, is pretty much a clone of Alaska – the only difference is I believe Margo is more refreshingly pensive about the universe around her, more mature, and nuanced.

Likewise, you can attempt to juxtapose Quentin with Miles from Looking for Alaska – but where as Miles appears to be a lot more passive and flat as a character, I feel that Quentin has a lot more going for him.

I will now list down the reasons why I relate to Quentin before I digress even further into my rant as to why I just fail to appreciate Looking for Alaska the way other John Green fans may.

Firstly, Quentin appears and often acts quietly complaisant. Whereas his friends, including Margo, are all fuel and fire, Quentin is that easily overlooked dripping trail of gasoline. The way he reacts to a lot of the situations in the novel are how I would probably react to things in real life. On the surface one may assume that he is accepting of everything, but within him he is constantly mulling over situations past, present and future. And yes, I accept the flaws in this parallel of our personalities too. While he obligingly goes along with a lot of Margo’s plans and the plans of his friends, he is also inclined to passively submitting himself to their consequences. And I feel like I do that a lot too.

He also prefers routine to something unfamiliar. I could have easily chosen Margo to identify with since we both have this love for mystery, storytelling and planning and we’re both girls. Heck, her black notebook is terrifyingly familiar to me. I, too, used to write stories based on my real life friends when I was ten-years-old – long story short, we all had ponies. But no, unlike Margo, I love planning a lot but I’m terrified to take the initiative to do the things I plan. I would not be able to just runaway like her, or spontaneously befriend security guards, or sneak into Seaworld. So, there are a lot more things I have in common with Quentin than her.

Next, when Quentin sets his eyes on an end goal, he is unrelentingly resolute, maybe even stubbornly so. One part of the novel even alludes Quentin as Captain Ahab chasing the white whale – Margo being Moby-Dick. And I admit I have the tendency to be this way too far too often in my life. When he believes that he is one step closer in completing the quest to finding Margo, Quentin’s mindset narrows, nothing else matter except finding the rest of the clues. I relate to that as well as I am often times easily disappointed when my friends don’t get on-board with my crazy schemes.

Similarly, I feel that I have the tendency to direct myself into tasks almost obsessively too. Playing Sherlock Holmes, trying to scavenge for answers, or even just creating elaborate fantasy worlds in my head is an obsession that I can see myself getting into far too voluntarily. Similarly, I have the tendency to snap at people or get frustrated at them if they ever stand in the way of my goal the same way Quentin snaps at Ben over the phone for not being just as absorbed as he was in finding Margo.

I sometimes have impossibly high standards for the people who exist around me. So I accept the fact that I have many of Quentin’s flaws:

“You know your problem, Quentin? You keep expecting people not to be themselves. I mean, I could hate you for being massively unpunctual and for never being interested in anything other than Margo Roth Spiegelman, and for, like, never asking me about how it’s going with my girlfriend – but I don’t give a shit, man, because you’re you.” 
― John Green, Paper Towns

Lastly, Quentin’s obsession in finding meaning is a trait that I am far too common with. Quentin’s stream of consciousness involves him finding connections with his everyday life with his quest to find Margo. Agreeably, it is natural for any character to attempt to connect the things they see in their day to day life with their current thoughts and obsessions, but Quentin does this with almost everything. He considers it in a constant, infinite loop. He rereads Songs of Myself by Walt Whitman again and again and again.

And frankly, once I find a poem I love, I have the terrible habit of scrutinising it laboriously too. I also have the habit of trying to connect the things I learn with the things I currently experience – and this is part of how I remember them for exams, and part of how I just drive myself absolutely insane. That one semester I took a Literature and Madness course I almost drove myself insane. Like Quentin, I feel like a sponge absorbing knowledge and then trying to process it as logically as possible 24/7.

Therefore, for all these reasons, I identify and relate to Quentin. I relate to how he chooses to observe the way people interact around him, how things appear around him, his desperation to be accepted and liked even though he would rather appear to not crave it so much, his apathy towards the idea of prom, his determination to find the answer to a long line of breadcrumbs, and an affinity of connecting images with meaning.

I am sure that once I finish this book and move onto the next book I will feel like that future character is the one I relate to the most. But for now, I am content to say that I can relate to Quentin “Q” Jacobsen.

So, to find out more relatable characters, again, check out Rhey of Sunshine‘s wonderful blog. And I shall catch you tomorrow for a book that changed my opinion of something.

Till next time,

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 24: A book that you wish more people would’ve read

Hello dear readers!

It is Friday. And we’re on the last stretch of the 30DBC. For today’s challenge I really took a long time to think about this.

Honestly, I would recommend almost every book I mentioned as something you should read. People should read Fight Club and The Fault in Our Stars and The Lovely Bones and Good Morning, Midnight. You should spend Halloween reading Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Wieland; Le Dame Aux Camelias when you fall in love, and The Butcher’s Wife when you have a break-up; and Simon’s Cat and The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy when you’re taking a dump … Too much information?

If anything, I would wish that more people read. And usually I recommend to people the book I last read.

But, I thought about it, and if there was any book that I wish more people read – or consulted is …

A dictionary – or a thesaurus

Yes, I decided to go for sass today – but really, if there was any book I would give a person, especially the younger generation, it would be a dictionary (which does not include the word ‘selfie’ in it).

I wish more people perused a dictionary every now and then. I wish more people expanded their vocabulary, I wish people knew the definition of words before using them, and I wish that people just used the whole spectrum of the English language to its full-effect. ‘Cause not using those beautiful words is just a crime.

And I quote

“So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys – to woo women – and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.” 
― N.H. Kleinbaum, Dead Poets Society

I wish more people knew the difference between a noun, verb and adjective – and pronoun and article and adverb.

This also goes for people who write books as well. I wish there was a minimum number of times you can describe the grass as green and the sky as blue.

I prefer authors who spend more time describing a feeling than what article of clothing their character wears. I wish authors paid attention to the specifics. I wish more people spent time looking through a dictionary.

One of my favourite websites is etymonline.com. I use it all the time for poetry and for writing my scholarly essays. I love the semantic links in words. I wish more people explored them.

I wish they would appreciate the beauty of how, to define a word, you need to connect it to more words. You can define something with another word – which has its own definition. And that definition contains more words – and the cycle continues.

The dictionary is ultimately a maze of words upon words upon words of things that need to be defined and can only be defined by a set of words we assume others already know.

The dictionary is the very first ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’, as you navigate your way through its alphabetically-ordered pages.

So, I suggest, if you ever wanted to know the meaning of life – look for it in a dictionary.

And for more books that people should read, check out my partner-in-crime’s blog Rhey of Sunshine. Oh, and also, please go over to her blog and tell her “Get Well Soon” cause she’s been feeling sick lately!

Till next time,

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 23: A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t

Hello readers!

So for today’s 30DBC I’ll be going over the books I have on my to-read list. I decided to include more than one book today, ’cause frankly I have a lot of books that I want to read. Also, I don’t think I can fill in an entire review on a book I haven’t read yet.

So here’s a list of 5 books I still want to read, but haven’t gotten to yet:

1. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

I watched the movie of this and I so want to read this book as well. It just sounds like a book I need in my read list. This novel is a comedy sci-fi.

The book begins with contractors arriving at Arthur Dent‘s house. They wish to demolish his house in order to build a bypass. Arthur’s best friend, Ford Prefect, arrives, warning him of the end of the world. The two head to a bar, where the locals question Ford’s knowledge of the Apocalypse. An alien race, known as Vogons, show up to demolish the planet, and Arthur and Ford manage to get on their ship.” – Wiki

After that Arthur is sent on a reluctant journey across the galaxy in an attempt to find a planet, Magrathea, known for selling luxury planets.

2. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

I have definitely been absolutely hooked on finding the perfect sci-fi book lately, and I feel like this book might be it. It has had great ratings and reviews so far so it sounds so promising – plus that title is amazing.

A final, apocalyptic, world war has killed millions, driving entire species into extinction and sending the majority of mankind off-planet. Those who remain, venerate all remaining examples of life, and owning an animal of your own is both a symbol of status and a necessity. For those who can’t afford an authentic animal, companies build incredibly realistic simulacrae: horses, birds, cats, sheep . . . even humans. – Goodreads

3. A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin

I’ve only managed to watch three seasons of Game of Thrones and once I’ve taken such a long break from the series it feels like such a task to try and get back into it. So what’s my ultimate solution? Meh, just read the books instead – said no one but me in this kind of society. I’m thinking of whether to read it or listen to the audio books.

In the novel, recounting events from various points of view, Martin introduces the plot-lines of the noble houses of Westeros, the Wall, and the Targaryens.” – Wiki

4. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

If there is any book that I’ve wanted to read for a very long time, it’s this one. And this would have probably been the book I would have written about if I had to choose only one.

At the heart of Catch-22 resides the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war. His problem is Colonel Cathcart, who keeps raising the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions that he is committed to flying, he is trapped by the Great Loyalty Oath Crusade, the bureaucratic rule from which the book takes its title: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes the necessary formal request to be relieved of such missions, the very act of making the request proves that he is sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.” – Goodreads

I’ve read a chapter of it during my school days, found it hilarious and thought-provoking, but I did not have enough time to read the rest. Till now, I keep having it at the back of my mind to read, but just never got to it. It was always just “Someday”.

5. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I’ve heard so many amazing things about this book. I really want to catch this one someday.

Kurt Vonnegut’s absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut’s) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.” – Goodreads

Yes, it’s another sci-fi kind of book. It is also apparently quite similar to Catch-22 in the sense that it takes place around the Second World War and offers a “deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority”. 

To check out more books on a to-read list, visit Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog as we are conquering this 30 Day Book Challenge together, however take note that the most recent challenge of hers may not be out at the same time as mine due to our different working schedules and that she is also feeling sick lately. Also, let me know if you’ve read any of these books and if you would recommend them!

Catch you tomorrow!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 22: Favorite book you own

Hi guys!

So we’re on to day 22 of the 30DBC. Before I begin, a kind reminder to check out Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog as well as we conquer this challenge together.

For today, I’ll be looking at the favourite book I own. I own a lot of books and I’m honestly so reluctant to get rid of any of them. Once I buy a book it is like I’m adopting a kitten. I have several favourite books that I own – but I have to say that my favourite book is …

The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories by Tim Burton

Why is it my favourite? Because, look at it! I love the jacket sleeve and the classic hardcover, the silver writing and the gorgeous Burton artwork. It looks so beautiful – and I know how you’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover, but if you had to, this book has just a deceptively pretty cover.

The second reason why I love owning this book is because of the artwork in it. It can be so easily mistaken as a children’s book. The illustrations are lovable and comic, yet dark and disturbing at the same time. I just love flipping through the pages and seeing all the sad, forgotten, mishap children of Burton’s world.

 

Lastly, apart from how this book is just a feast for the eyes, the stories (or more like poems) themselves are just so entertaining – in the darkest way possible. They end in such tragic yet perfect ways. I can’t really say which one is my favourite … I love the tragic tale of match boy and stick girl – a pair that were just not meant to be, and the girl with many eyes. As a whole, they are all just misfortunate children.

You can look at it deeper if you like, you can see it as a way for other children – or adults – to cope with their problems, parents who never loved them, never being able to fit in the world, but for these poems, I prefer to keep it simple. I take them as (ironically) light stories which I can read again and again.

Hence, it was worth buying, and hence, I will cherish it for a very very long time.

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 21: Favorite book from your childhood

Hi everyone!

Welcome back! I hope you guys came back. It’s hard to tell – blink twice if you’re back reading this.

Actually on second thought I really can’t see that so never mind. I’m being childish.

What? Look at that! I segued (oh, that’s how you spell it – I initially spelt it as segway – fail) nicely to today’s 30DBC: my favourite book from my childhood.

Actually, it is sad how this one is so easy, probably ’cause there was just that one book I read when I was a kid again and again and again. And back then I claimed it as my favourite book …

Molly the Brave and Me by Jane O’Connor

It makes me both cringe and feel absolutely nostalgic when I divulge this to you. Cringe because I bet there are a hundred thousand classic books that I could have mentioned like The Hungry Hungry Caterpillar, or Matilda, or The Paper Bag Princess or The Magic Faraway Tree – but no, my favourite childhood book is so nondescript it is so difficult to find a proper cover for it.

Yet at the same time, it makes me nostalgic; I’m so defensive of this one book because of how it impacted my childhood. Even looking at the cover again makes me feel so safe. It brings me back to my room as a child. The huge white desk I had that covered an entire wall, its pink edges. And the shelves which I climbed upon – and fell down from one day and remembered nothing but being up on my table and being on the floor the next moment. The double decker bed. The Playstation console and tiny black bulky television.

Molly the Brave and Me written by Jane O’Connor (who is better known for her Fancy Nancy children’s series) is the story of Beth (the girl at the bottom of the jungle gym) who admires her friend, Molly, so much because she is so daring and doesn’t seem to be scared of anything. On the other hand, Beth is a shy and self-conscious girl, who thinks she is undeserving when Molly asks her over for a sleepover. She doesn’t feel special or brave or anything. During the sleepover, the two of them get lost in the cornfield. It is here that Beth discovers her own sort of bravery and comes to the rescue.

This was honestly such an important story for me as a kid cause I identified with Beth. I never felt really special and I always felt like my friends were far more confident and in control than I was. This book comforted me. It gave me quiet confidence.

As a kid I really devoured books. My school used to have a Scholastic Book Club catalogue subscription and I would always end up buying one or two books for each one, much to the chagrin of my mum. I used to imagine that one day I would be a writer and that my books would be published by Scholastic and be sold in that catalogue and a seven-year-old would buy them the same way I bought mine.

I wouldn’t be surprised if I had gotten Molly the Brave and Me from there.

Ah, writing this post really made me smile. Head over to Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog to know which childhood book made her feel all nostalgic and happy. And I’ll catch you tomorrow for more of this challenge. We’re at the last few!

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 20: Favorite romance book

Hi everybody!

So for today’s 30DBC, it’s all about the <3. What’s so difficult about this one is that I’m not the type of reader who deliberately picks out a novel for the romance.

When I think “romance book” I just instantly picture a Fabio muscle man with a ripped white shirt holding onto the waist of an almost-fainted-big-bosom lady – and imaginary wind. Or what Joey from Friends would call a “dirty book” (you know, that episode with Rachel’s “porn” book?)

Romance isn’t really something that I read – or really watch. It’s very difficult for me to be a hopeless romantic, really. So if you want a less cynical romantic take on the favourite romance book challenge, please check out Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog. I believe she would have a more befitting response – and choice. I’m just terrible about gushing about love. I think I’ve read more romance fanfics than books. I can always recommend some awesome Harry Potter romance fanfics easily. But books – I’m struggling.

But I tried, I really tried – so I won’t call the one I chose as a love story, per say, but this novel definitely has more romance than the normal book I read …

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

This is honestly the first John Green book I read, and I’ll be honest, it took me a while to actually start it. I used to start reading the first chapter of Hazel Lancaster in the support group and then stop after a few paragraphs. But one day I just decided to really push myself and just read it. And then I finished it in two days.

If you haven’t heard of TFIOS, you just might be living with Patrick Star, a.k.a. under a rock. Everybody’s been talking about the movie coming out – regardless of whether it be in absolute “the feels”/”my heart” mode or cynically, saying “Oh it’s just another A Walk to Remember” or parodying the “it’s a metaphor” scene with the cigarettes (I personally find it hilarious though).

So, this story is about Hazel Lancaster who was diagnosed with Stage 4 Thyroid cancer. Because of the metastasis in her lungs, she has to have an oxygen tank to aid her breathing. One day, at her support group which takes place at the basement of a church (‘the Literal Heart of Jesus’), she meets Augustus Waters, a fighter of cancer himself – and that is where their weird friendship turned love begins.

I guess the reason why I chose this couple is that they are – bearable. And almost normal. Their love is understated. And you can tell that by the way they say “I love you”:

Maybe ‘okay’ will be our ‘always” 
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

They don’t have an amazing cliche first date, they just watch V for Vendetta on the couch. They don’t talk about how much they love each other – that much, they instead share in their fears and perspective of life and death, and their love for a book called, An Imperial Affliction (which I actually think is a cringeworthy book name).

And I almost aww-ed when Augustus planned a Dutch-themed picnic for Hazel.

And I almost aww-ed even more when they went to Amsterdam (in an attempt to meet the author of Imperial Affliction) and went on their date at Oranjee.

But it really wasn’t about those moments that solidified my love for the two. ‘Cause a novel can easily describe a couple at their best and have it seem as though it were a fairytale, a happily ever after.

I think the moment I loved the most (in the most heart-aching way) was when Augustus called Hazel to pick him up at the gas station in the middle of the night. That moment, Augustus was at his weakest point, he was absolutely helpless – I can’t really explain how that moment impacted me – wait …

Okay, have you ever had that moment when a person you love is at their worse moment? You suddenly realise, they’re so human and they’re so vulnerable and they absolutely release all guards that they had up about themselves, all their pride, all their smiles and bravery, and you can see it screaming in their eyes: they need you.

That’s what that moment was like. Hazel realised Augustus was not “Augustus the Roman Emperor” anymore, he was just a teenager, he was just “Gus”; he was absolutely defenseless like a fetus – that’s the best metaphor I could come up with; a fetus in the sense that you just did not know how to help it when it cried out to you, coated in its own abject desolation.

And, last but not least, the reason why I loved this book was because of the experiences I could share with it. Certain aspects of the novel, even though I have never even come close to experiencing what cancer would be like or what it would be like to be around someone with cancer, were just relatable. At the end of the day I loved The Fault in Our Stars not because it was a romance book, but because it was essentially a book about so many other things. And to just narrow it into that small pigeonhole of teenage, angst, love … it’s just completely missing the target, it’s completely missing the target by shooting a bowling ball, backwards, into the football stands, causing a headlining “mexican wave” accident.

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.” 
― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

Well, I hope I did not sound too much of a John Green fangirl here. The honest truth is that I am not. But the other honest truth is that I really did love this book a lot and I loved the way Green wrote it. And, yes, I can’t wait to watch the movie for it. ‘Cause I think it will be amazing. I will just have to prepare a lot of tissues.

Also, here’s me sharing the song I listened to on loop while reading the book, cause face it, everyone has a “dream” TFIOS theme song: Backseat Serenade (Acoustic) – All Time Low. Mine’s just perfect cause the word “hand grenade” is in there.

Well, till tomorrow, guys!

Till next time,

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 18: A book that disappointed you

Happy weekend, guys!

So for today’s 30DBC, I’m going to go over a book that disappointed me. Said book is:

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

I first decided to endeavour reading this novel after watching the film with the same name.

It is set in future Earth where mankind’s existence is threatened by the presence of the Formics, otherwise known as “Buggers”, an ant-like alien species. So to prepare for the third invasion (as it has been dubbed), the International Fleet (IF) train children and seeks out possible trainees to lead an army. Ender is the third child in a society where families are under a strict two-child policy. His family specially requested to have Ender after their two children showed a lot of promise in Battle School – however their first child, Peter, turned out too violent, and their second child, Valentine, too empathic. Ender is supposedly the “baby bear” of the fairytale trope, a.k.a. “just right”.

The rest of the novel follows Ender as he is chosen to go through further training, through difficult tasks and games in Command School.

I was excited to read the novel after watching the book because there were so many interesting concepts that I hoped the book explored more of. Also, after watching an Ender’s Game spoilercast by RoosterTeeth, where they gushed about how much better the book apparently was, I thought that it was inevitable that I would read it.

At first, it seemed alright, there were more moments at the Battle School and I was excited to get into the mind of Ender – but after a couple of chapters I found myself disappointed. Maybe it was the expectation that was given from the film itself – they made it appear that Ender was a boy genius, but the way Scott Card wrote Ender was less remarkable. There was some attempt to be logical and reasoning, but it appeared to be a whole less impressive than I hoped it would be.

The rest of the book was therefore a letdown. The only moments I cherished the most and found the most intriguing was the forum speeches and new relationship that Peter and Valentine had on earth which was not in the movie itself.

Upon finishing the book, I had to come to a conclusion as to why I felt disappointed in the book – and I came to this conclusion.

Firstly, this was a book that was released in 1985, where the technology in the book must have seemed far more impressive back then but has (to some extent) come to fruition today. This includes the large communication network which Scott Card talks about on Earth and the forums present on this network which, today, has become the Internet. There was the moment when Ender hacked into the Commander School system and that is something very realisable today. Hence, first and foremost, reading about technology that was only a vision back then probably takes the glory out of the Ender’s Game universe.

Secondly, this book is probably targeted to a younger audience and, like many books when we read when we were younger, it would have definitely far more enrapturing when I was thirteen than now. The writing is good enough for a teenager but as an adult, there is a lot to lust after in terms of explanations of the universe that surrounds Ender’s Game.

Lastly, I watched it as a movie before I read it as a book. Personally, I loved the movie. I loved the soundtrack of the movie and the amazing special effects of it. They made the universe and Ender appear larger than life. This is a lot different from the book where Ender is still very much a child, he still has many vulnerable moments – however Ender in the film appeared like a boy who had everything sorted out – every minute, every action. I suppose I wished the movie took more scenes in, but in terms of cutting them out – they did remove the more complicated, dull stuff, like the dozens of rounds of anti-gravity war simulations versus other groups that I practically glazed over in the book.

It is for these, very reasonable, reasons why I was disappointed when I finally sat down and decided to read Ender’s Game. So, I’ll be impartial here.

It may not have been because the book was a failure – cause I definitely doubt that. It was just the circumstances in which I read it that made it less than spectacular to me.

Personally, I feel like the book is something completely lost to me. I’ve lost the perfect moment to read it, and therefore I feel I can never fully appreciate it the way it was at that time of first publication. Instead, I will just appreciate the film for what the book inevitably became. So if you like sci-fi books, I still suggest you try reading it – but maybe before watching the film.

So, last but not least, check out Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog to see the book that disappointed her. And I’ll catch you tomorrow for my favourite book turned into a movie – which could very well be Ender’s Game, ’cause Ender’s Game was a good book to movie adaptation (in my opinion, and because I did it the opposite way around, i.e. movie then book) – but I won’t do that to you readers, i.e. Ender’s Game two days in a row.

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 16: Favorite female character

Hey there, readers!

For today’s 30DBC challenge, I will be covering my favourite female character.

Now, while it’s evident that I prefer my male characters as absolutely cynical as possible, when I look back at the female characters I have read, I always consider them – first – with nostalgia, then, with some level of veneration.

Firstly, I can attest that I have never admired the women in classics or early literature -it’s like trying to admire a housewife written by a man. How can you admire a woman who is either a saint or a sinner? So I immediately rejected those women as favourites. Shakespeare’s Juliet was spoilt and lacked resilience and rationality. I present to you this apt gif:

So, let’s move on, otherwise this post will be about how there are no decent characters written before the 18th century.

Hence, secondly, I personally find myself blessed to not have known that such “birdbrain women” existed until I began studying my literature course. Instead, my teachers, from early on, have always introduced me to individualistic women, women who strived to be altruistic and audacious. Women like Leslie Burke from Bridge to Terabithia (on the right) and Alanna of Trebond from The Song of the Lioness Quartet. It was then natural for me to pursue those women in the books I read later on, women like Violet Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events, Sabriel from Sabriel and Lyra Silvertongue from The Golden Compass.

However, I will disclaim that my literature studies did not introduce me to another sort of bravery in women which I admire (maybe even more). It is those women who do not physically rebel against societal boundaries, but those who struggle in the midst of it, despite many adversaries. Those who see the struggles of the marginalised and seek to find some sort of salvation amidst their pain.Women such as Sethe from Beloved (on the left), Esther Greenwood from The Bell Jar, Clarissa Dalloway from Mrs Dalloway and the formidable unknown protagonist of The Yellow Wallpaper. These women taught me that you do not need to wield a sword and a bow to be a BAMF – you can wield words and kindness and inner strength as well. Power comes from more than just physically action.

And it appears here that I have listed down more than one woman to whom I love dearly – and I guess, I have to admit, that this introduction played that sort of function. For, when it comes to female literature, my heart goes out to all the female characters who seek to have a voice in society and they were all deserving, in my view, of a means to express their anguish, their joy and their personal endeavours.

But, as for my favourite, I will have to choose a female character who will always have a place in my heart since I was a young,a woman who wields both a weapon and wisdom, one which I actually dressed up as for my school’s “Dress as a Book Character” Day – Time-Turner, wand, frizzy hair and all.

Hermione Jean Granger in The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Yes, I finally did it, I chose Harry Potter for one of my challenges – or more specifically, Hermione Granger. But after some deliberation I thought I would do myself serious injustice if I did not pick her today.

Hermione has a soft place in my heart because I honestly see myself as her sometimes, the same way that J.K. Rowling herself saw Hermione as a(n exaggerated) version of her eleven-year-old self.

Hermione is, first and foremost, a girl who did not fit in but desperately wanted to. She was muggle-born, and a know-it-all, which meant she faced prejudice from both sides of the fence. She was neither liked by the Slytherins nor Harry and his Gryffindor friends. She was an outsider from the very beginning. And I believe that is what first makes her special: she understood from the get-go what it was like to be not wanted nor appreciated. And, despite her snobbish persona in the beginning of The Philosopher’s Stone, as a reader, it was easy to empathise with that moment during Halloween when Harry and Ron discovered she would go to the bathrooms and cry because she had no friends.

Being unwanted in Hogwarts from the very beginning, shaped Hermione. If she had been loved by both sides of the fence, she could have easily turned out like Malfoy, or worse, Voldemort. Despite the scorn she got from others, she was still kind (in the best way she knew how to be), she still raised her hand in class to answer questions, and she continued to seek friendship in books. She was always in the pursuit of knowledge and the fact that she spent hours in the library made her love her even more.

Yet, at the same time, Hermione was a character who never purely sought out knowledge, otherwise she would have easily ended up in Ravenclaw. It was evident that Rowling intended for there to be much more to Hermione than someone who was an intellectual. And I believe it is this character development in Hermione which solidified her as one of my favourites.

She hated women who abused their power, like Rita Skeeter, Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange. And so she fashioned herself apart from them. She also saw the potential in those who were less appreciated and overlooked.

Harry rarely was the one to first befriend the secondary characters – it was usually Hermione who did so. She found friendship with Dobby, Ginny, Neville and Luna before Harry ever did. She was also the pioneer of many plans that sought to change the world for the better, such as SPEW and Dumbledore’s Army.

So, that is my Harry Potter rant over and done with. And, because this gives me the opportunity to share my favourite Harry Potter band, Ministry of Magic, here is one of their songs, Ascendio, that you can check out. 😀

And there you go, because I love her fantasyuniverse and the person she is in it, I chose Hermione as my favourite female character. So, head over to Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog to check out her favourite female character, and I will catch you guys tomorrow for my favourite quote from a book!

Till then,

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 15: Favorite male character

Hi everyone!

We’re at the halfway point of the 30DBC, and today I’ll be tackling my favourite male character. For today, it is actually very difficult for me to discuss this “favourite male character”, and if you realise who it is, then you’ll realise why. So don’t mind me as I render myself speechless at some points in this blog post. But, I’m sure (for those who have read Fight Club or watched the film) you will understand why …

The Narrator in Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

The Narrator of Fight Club remains nameless throughout the novel for many specific reasons, one of them I will not spoil here – I refuse to spoil here (even though a lot of other descriptions of the Narrator may decide to reveal why). Let’s just say that you will need to read the book to find out why.

One of the more straightforward, and effective, reasons why the Narrator is nameless is because he is a representative of all of us, the collective average, everyday working man. His voice is that of the average, his routine is that of the average and he carries with him the frank and bitter truth that we are all part of a capitalistic society.

So, with all this man’s negativity, why do I love him as a character?

There are many reasons why I love the society-and-self-deprecating man that is the Narrator. He is an insomniac, depressed, attends help groups with various aliases, befriends a complete psycho named Tyler Durden who forces him to push the boundaries of his boring life, and makes soap from the fat of rich, vain women and sells it back to them.

The Narrator hits rock bottom and then co-creates (with Tyler Durden) the infamous (you did not hear it from me) Fight Club and then, the larger-scale Project Mayhem (which takes very literally the phrase: “watching the world burn”).

But – between all these crazy events, the reason why I love the Narrator is, first and foremost, his dry humor – one that cuts through all the poetics of literature, the illusions of day-to-day life and just punches the reader in the face, like a well-intentioned insult – like the true meaning of Fight Club. Many times I found myself laughing for the wrong reasons while reading Fight Club.

You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis. You are all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

Simultaneously, while appreciating the humor, I love how The Narrator speaks a truth which society is all familiar with but never consciously aware of.

You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you’re satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you’ve got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you’re trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you.”

Thanks to The Narrator, I can never go into Ikea with the same sentiments any more. Now, when I enter the doors and see all the perfectly modeled room cubicles, the inviting bed and the white shelves with the same, standardized books, when I find myself aspiring to have a room just like that, I am reminded of Fight Club and it really puts a damper to my excitement – maybe for the better.

It reminds me, all of us aspire to have that particular room, we all buy the exact same, cheap, mass-produced furniture – and sadly, even the same books (every shelf with a copy of the bestsellers, Harry Potter, an atlas, a dictionary, a bible …) and, at the end of the day, once we all assemble our Ikea products in our homes, feeling exceptionally proud of ourselves, we don’t realise it – our homes are all carbon copies of one another. And, unintentionally maybe, society has done this to us – made us predictable. We think we’re original and unique –

“You are not special. You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else. We’re all part of the same compost heap. We’re all singing, all dancing crap of the world.”

And maybe I’m now admiring Palahniuk’s writing and thought process, but to admire the character of the Narrator is, in part, to admire the author behind it.

And now, I’ll move on to the movie version of The Narrator, played by Edward Norton. Norton does The Narrator a lot of justice, he acts and appears just as tired (like literally, the Narrator suffers from insomnia) and exhausted of his life (and depression), and his tone is equally cynical of where society is heading.

If you’re not much of a reader, then maybe you want to check out the movie, it also stars Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter – but I would still suggest reading the book to get the full effect. The ending is also different from the movie. Here is a trailer to get a good idea of what the narrator is like:

And, again, as I ponder on what else I’d like to share about The Narrator, I find myself self-censoring my appreciation for him – let’s just say I didn’t expect and was in awe with the person he became. There are so many other reasons why I love the Narrator which I can’t quite speak of. Let’s just say that there is so much more to him than just an everyday man, and the revelation of this puts into question whether normalcy is really that normal at all, that maybe we are walking contradictions, walking paradoxes. And – and that is why I love the Narrator. Fullstop.

So, once again, be sure to stop by Rhey of Sunshine‘s blog for her favourite male character. And I’ll catch you tomorrow for my favourite female character.

Till next time,

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 09: A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

It’s so exciting that I’ve gotten this far! I don’t think I’ve blogged this much in such a long time – plus I have one more potential challenge coming after this. (So to find out what this 30DBC is about, click here.)

Today, I’ll be sharing with you a book that I thought I wouldn’t like but ended up loving. And, to cut to the chase today, this book is …

The Butcher’s Wife by Li Ang

I at first thought I wouldn’t like this novel because, as Chinese novels go, I am generally not a fan. I have a hard time reading them and, for the most part, the ones I have read have very arrogant tones and appear to flaunt (or prove) their ability to write in the English language with far too flowery imagery for my taste.

So, as meek as a Chinese writer may attempt to sound, I will always read them and regard them as having far too much pride in themselves, in their culture and their tradition. Now don’t get me wrong, it is alright to have pride in your culture – but there is some sort of defensiveness that Asian novels have which is off-putting, ’cause as a reader I always find it difficult taking the side of a protagonist who is ready to attack the reader on their lack of knowledge in their Asian culture.

The Butcher’s Wife, on the other hand, while I was skeptical at first on how much I would enjoy it, was absolutely riveting.

Chen Jiangshui is a pig-butcher in a small coastal Taiwanese town. Stocky, with a paunch and deep-set beady eyes, he resembles a pig himself. His brutality towards his new young wife, Lin Shi, knows no bounds. The more she screams, the more he likes it. She is further isolated by the vicious gossip of her neighbors who condemn her for screaming aloud. As they see it, women are supposed to be tolerant and put their husbands above everything else. According to an old Chinese belief, all butchers are destined for hell–an eternity of torment by the animals they have dispatched. Lin Shi, isolated, despairing, and finally driven to madness, fittingly kills him with his own instrument–a meat cleaver.

Because of the violence and sexuality portrayed in this novel, it is no wonder that this novel, upon being published, was incredibly controversial in Taiwan and immediately banned. Li Ang got the idea for this story herself from a newspaper clipping of a real life case of a woman who murdered her husband with a meat cleaver. Yet, despite the criticism it has gotten from its own community, I believe The Butcher’s Wife is deserving of its rightful place in women’s literature today. It is the portrayal of how women themselves in a community are prejudiced against their own sex, and how absolute suppression and repression can result in horrifying psychological torment and damage, and disastrous repercussions.

While I first thought that the character of Lin Shi was one that I would not be able to identify nor empathise with, I found myself very wrong about this after the first few pages. It is apparent that Lin Shi is not as vocal and strong-willed a female character as one may prefer them to be, but her demeanor is befitting of a girl in her situation. Her inability to find a proper escape from her prison is the very reason why the events in this novel unfold the way they should. Treated like an animal, it is no surprise that she grows more and more unreliable as a narrator and far more deranged as a woman. The ending was both tragic and oddly satisfying to read. As a reader I found myself grappling with a range of emotions towards the treatment of Lin Shi and her final outburst upon her husband.

So for those who have always been skeptical towards Asian literature, maybe you want to give this novel a go.

Last but not least, do check out Rhey of Sunshine for her book which she ended up loving, and I’ll see you tomorrow for my favourite classic book.

Till next time,

cumuloq ❤

30DBC Day 07: Most underrated book

And we’re on to day seven of the 30 Day Book Challenge. (For more info on what this challenge is about, click here.)

So this was a difficult one for me to choose. I don’t think I would ever consider any book I’ve read as “underrated”. If anything, books as a whole these days feel underrated, i.e. everyone’s watched the movie version but no one has actually sat down and taken the opportunity to read the book and all the lesser known characters and scenes (and sometimes those scenes are the best.)

But, regardless, I managed to choose one, and that one is …

Wieland; Or, The Transformation: An American Tale by Charles Brockden Brown

It was published in 1798 and is the first and, apparently, most famous American Gothic novel. But, despite this title (which is provided on its wikipedia page), I feel as though not many people know of nor appreciate the horror that lies within these pages. Instead, the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King are more prominent titles for American Goth and horror. After all, go to Goodreads.com and Wieland is listed as 68th, far below Frankenstein – and of all novels, Phantom of the Opera – does that even count?

Therefore, I believe Wieland deserves far more attention than it is currently receiving.

The novel of Wieland is supposedly based on a real murder which took place in Tomhannock, New York, in which a man with no regret for his actions, under religious influence, kills his wife and four children and almost murders his own sister.

This novel follows similar events where Clara’s father becomes dangerously obsessed in his own religion and then one day spontaneously combusts and then afterward dies. Later on, Clara’s brother, Theodore, after having grown up and had his own family, begins to hear strange voices – voices that influence him to kill the rest of his family.

The reason why I also find this novel underrated is due to the selective reader appreciation it garners. Many may criticise the work due to the final reveal (the reason behind the mystery and the voices which Clara and Theodore hear) – others criticise it for Brown’s not-up-to-par writing skills.

Personally, regardless of all these criticisms, I was still deeply enthralled by the shadows which the novel cast and the exploration of the fine line between what is real and what is imagined. I even did a paper on this in uni in which I wrote (and I am quoting and adapting from this paper):

Senses play a crucial role in Wieland, from the ears to the eyes, the protagonist and the reader are disorientated by Brown through shadows, spaces, and sound. In doing this, Brown reveals the errors present in ideologies purely based on spiritual and empirical paradigms, how judgments of the mind and imagination are on mutable foundations. Through this, he also exposes the unreliability of sound as evidence to the truth, the slippery nature of aesthetic rhetoric. Instead, he places emphasis on the eyes to behold the visual presence of the truth. However, this is not without reminding the reader that not all is known by the eyes. The human mind is fallible, and although it tries to retain as much information as possible, human reasoning is often flawed.

It is in this discovery where the horror lies for Wieland. It is the discovery that all we see and hear is not all we know and in attempting to know more, and to rationalise our situation, we may end up becoming more ignorant of our circumstances. I believe that Wieland should be read more, especially as a preface to the Gothic collection of American literature.

Joyce Carol Oates stated that Wieland was: “a nightmare expression of the fulfillment of repressed desire, anticipating Edgar Allan Poe’s similarly claustrophobic tales of the grotesque”

Give it a chance, you may not be satisfied by the ending, nor Brown’s writing style, but you need to admit that there are definitely moments in this novel that are haunting.

For more underrated novels, please visit Rhey of Sunshine! And tomorrow, I shall share what I believe is a completely overrated novel. Frankly, this one was so much easier to write. There are definitely many books that I find absolutely overrated.

Till next time!

cumuloq ❤