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| Through the Looking-Glass book cover Another book by Lewis Carroll, the adventures of Alice continue. Some time later after the first book, Alice goes through a mirror into an opposite world. Including both the characters from the past book and new characters, Alice is in a quests to become a Queen. This is achieved by going through 8 squares, it is like a game of chess. Still talking to herself and questioning everything Alice goes through the Looking-Glass and interacts with many characters such as Humpty Dumpty. I enjoyed this book although not as much as the first one. The story was great in terms of how it was made as a game of chess and it by far had more poetry in it. The question of who had the dream is intriguing and I loved how she used her kittens as characters in the story. It's an extremely short read and I gout through it in a sitting. I would recommend this book if you want more of Alice but I think the first story is far more loved by the public and therefore could be enjoyed more. In comparison I must say I liked the movie a bit more because of the use of the Jabberwocky but the book is good and such a different story that they should be regarded as two separate tales. I give this book a 3/5 |
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| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book cover Ford Prefect is an alien from the planet Betelgeuse who has been stranded on Earth for the last 15 years. DON'T PANIC! But the world is about to end. That is when Ford Prefect hitches a ride with the Vogon ship that is about to destroy the planet to make a galactic freeway. Taking his friend Arthur Dent with him, both go on adventures with the President Zaphod Beeblebrox, Trillian and Marvin the paranoid android. With the stolen spaceship, the Heart of Gold, they travel through the galaxy and find a million years old secret alongside with the answer to the meaning of Life, the Universe and Everything. But not without the help of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a book about everything in the universe. This book written by Douglas Adams is brilliant. It is a mixture of sci-fi and comedy that seems so silly you can't help but laugh. I really loved this book, it's one of my new favorites. The story took on an unexpected turn and an incredible explanation as to why the planet Earth was created. I seriously laughed a lot especially at the Guide's entries like the one from the Earth, "mostly harmless". This book is brilliant, it is really easy to read and quite short. My copy is The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy so it has the 5 novels, I can't wait to read the rest and find out what happens. Also and on a side note the story of how this book came to be is pretty interesting as well. I'd recommend it to any sci-fi fan but if you don't like sci-fi much it may be tougher to get through. This book has definitively 5/5 stars. |
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| Watchmen book cover This graphic novel is written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. The story follows a group of superheroes, the next generation of the "Watchmen". It tells the first generation's story as flashbacks, with the adventures of the new "Watchmen". The story begins after an anti-vigilante act is passed. Some heroes are retired like Nite Owl, Rorschach is still active, Dr. Manhattan (with Silk Spectre as his companion) and The Comedian now work for the government. Ozymandias on the other side, revealed his true identity and currently runs his own companies. The Comedian was attacked and killed, Rorschach is investigating who is attacking the previous members of the Watchmen and the rest you will have to read because it is complicated to summarize without spoilers. I really enjoyed this graphic novel. It is a really crude story about superheroes that shows how things are in reality. I specially loved how throughout the book, the quote "who watches the watchmen" appeared as graffiti all over town. Also, the tough decisions the group had to make were surprising. I will not say who but a character dies so that the master plan can be completed. This plot-twist was amazing and just left me wanting for more which I didn't get. The ending was particularly shocking, I recommend this book as it is considered the best graphic novel ever. It won't disappoint the reader but you have to be ready for anything as it is quite crude. I give it 5/5 stars. |
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| Más Allá de las Tres Dunas book cover This Spanish book by Susana Fernández Gabaldón is about the discovery of the hidden city of Hanefer. All this through the acquisition and discovery of some magical items by Hassan, a man who works at an antiquities shop in Cairo. One of these items is Princess Neferure's hand-held mirror, it shows visions of the past to one of Hassan's nephews. This event sends Hassan, one of his friends and his nephews into the desert to find the lost city. Once they do this, they need to escape alive. I like this book because it was a part of my childhood. Since I was a kid I was interested in Egypt and this is a great book to get started in that area. With easy language and an interesting story, Más Allá de las Tres Dunes is great for any kid. The best thing is how Susana describes everything, it leaves it to your imagination and is so detailed that it helps with the story. I would recommend this book for small children (10-12) because it is extremely easy to read and it is also entertaining. Its aspects of magic and history are what makes this book similar to Rick Riordan's work minus the humor. I give it 3/5 stars because it isn't as amusing as it was 6 years ago. |
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| Alan Turing: The Enigma book cover This book, written by Andrew Hodges and published in 1983, is the biography of the British mathematician Alan Mathison Turing. Including his involvement at Bletchley Park during WW2, his work on biology and the creation of the computer and artificial intelligence this is the most thorough publication of his life. Sadly, he was a homosexual. I say sadly because it was not a good time to be one, he was eventually arrested and forced to go through a "chemical castration" for a year. All of this, including his contributions to science were made before his suicide in 1954. I read this book after watching the movie and in this case it was better this way. The movie helped me ease into the difficult description of advanced mathematics and physics. Having said this, in no way is the book as easy to understand as the movie. Explaining how Turing thought and his multiple experiments was tough to understand. I understand the book simply can't be short but it definitively could've been less like a math class. Putting that aside, the book was good. I learned so much of history and how being different was bad. It caught my attention how during the 50's being a homosexual was equivalent to being more reliable to give in to pressure or blackmail and that due to this belief, no homosexuals were allowed in big government positions. It is a big book, about 700 pages long so it is no easy walk but to understand how it all evolved from the Manchester Mark I to what we now use everyday as regular computers is quite a development. Alan had a vision of "Universal Machines" that could do everything, even think (later called Artificial Intelligence). It is hard to give a review of such a long book considering that I wish to leave it as spoiler free as possible and still convey how awed I feel after reading this Man's life. As the movie says: "Sometimes it is the people who no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine." This book only has 3.5/5 stars because it is long and hard to keep up with but I truly think the story is worth reading. |
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| I got this new books from Barnes & Noble and am really excited to read them. As you can see the covers are beautiful and the books are gorgeous. |
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| The Murder Complex book cover The Murder Complex is a debut novel by Lindsay Cummings. The story was about Meadow and Zephyr, changing between their point of views. It is a dystopian novel in which you kill or be killed. Meadow is tough, she was trained by her father to survive. Zephyr is a trained assassin by the Murder Complex, an organization used for population control, although he doesn't know this. When they meet, Zephyr and Meadow start finding out the truth about what's happening inside The Perimeter and its beginnings. I actually really liked this book. As a debut novel you can't expect it to be perfect so of course it has its flaws. A really good thing for me was that I read the book without any expectations at all. I really like dystopian novels and most people think that the genre is overused, for me this is not the case. I found this novel to be very different from other dystopian novels. To begin with, it wasn't a perfect society. The murder rate was higher than the birth rate and it is a survival of the fittest story. The writing had a good alternation between both POV's and it was action-packed and fast paced. I really liked the characters and I also shipped them a lot. I think the plot twists are great and that it has set a really interesting plot for the next books. Then again, this are my opinions. People seem to either really like the novel or not at all. I do recommend this book and I think and hope the next ones will be even better. I really can't say much about the characters without spoilers except that to me, Zephyr is kind of really cute and Meadow is such a badass. It kind of has a lot of selfishness in it but I guess you end up driven to an "every man for himself" situation when murder is done even by the government in broad daylight and any disobedience may end up with another corpse. I especially liked to see characters react to certain situations where they're forced to kill someone and how society has made it "legal" in a way. I give this book 4.5/5 stars. |
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| The Infinite Sea book cover The Infinite Sea, a book by Rick Yancey is the second in The 5th Wave trilogy. A much shorter book than the first one, it follows Cassie Sullivan and her friends trying to survive the Others and their 5th wave. After the big explosion of Camp Haven, the group escapes and are currently staying in an abandoned hotel, waiting for Evan to appear. Ringer goes out to find some caverns that could serve as shelter for the winter and doesn't come back. That is when the story gets complicated. I absolutely adored this book, as a sequel it was not disappointing at all and it was as mind blowing as the first book. For those of you who haven't read The Infinite Sea yet, I gave the shortest and most spoiler free summary of all. The book is simply mind blowing and full of plot-twists, the writing is perfect and you can completely tell when the POV switches (even if you don't know who's talking yet). It is so mysterious and has so many cliffhangers it is practically impossible not to get hooked. The Infinite Sea is fast paced and action packed and besides, the romance is so realistic for a post-apocalyptic story. The characters are if not relatable, extremely empathetic. You can feel their pain and how they grow both accustomed and tired of how the world is coming to an end (and how powerless they seem to prevent it). To summarize, the book is excellent and I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes science fiction. I give this hook 5/5 stars and only because I can't give it more. |
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| Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Cover Alice is a children's book by Lewis Carroll about the main character, Alice, falling down a rabbit hole and ending up in Wonderland. Wonderland is a strange place were queens play croquet with flamingos, hatters and hares have a constant tea party and invisible cats smile. We follow Alice during her journey in which she questions many things like limits, object relationships between other things. Alice is also a curious girl who asks many questions and forms conversations with herself. Alice's curiosity makes her do many things, she's also a small girl so she speaks her mind constantly. I specially like how she keeps entire conversations with herself and it is quite interesting how she doesn't question everything that happens to her wilts in Wonderland. It is an excellent children's story that many people know and cherish, being an easy read and quite short so that children can understand it. Caroll created an amazing world in which everything is fantastic and it's an escape for the real world. Even though the book is intended a children's book, anyone can read it and the images make picturing the scenes much easier. It is a good book, it teaches lessons, it's entertaining and the characters are fun. I would recommend this book to anyone because it's a classic and you could probably read it in a day or so. I give this book 4/5 stars. |
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| Tales of the Jazz Age cover This book, by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a collection of short stories. Some of them are The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, May Day and Porcelain and Pink. The stories change in theme, characters and scenery. The most popular one is probably The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, where a baby is born as an old man (even in size) and as he ages his appearance is more child-like. He classifies his stories in three sections: My Last Flappers, Fantasies and Unclassified Masterpieces. Each story is different from the last and most of them are more or less 20 pages long. At the beginning of the book, Fitzgerald gives a small introduction of the story's context within the index. I liked this book, at least most of the stories. I definitely liked the Fantasies section much more as I am a lover of fantasy and science fiction. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was by far my favorite, followed by The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. I liked the stories and their characters. Most of the stories had a somewhat sad ending, either with death or poor living conditions the stories were definitely sad. I guess what Fitzgerald tried to do was to show how fragile human life is, I don't know for sure. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button shocked me, it was amazing. Benjamin's life was not as good as the movie depicts it. It is way more different. He wasn't loved and his parents ignored his condition because they couldn't live with it and keep their social status. It is extremely hard to review a book of short stories, if I were to talk about them all I would never finish it. I do recommend this book because it's so unique and intriguing. Some stories may not be as appealing but I'm pretty sure anyone will like at least on of them. Fitzgerald is a good author and it isn't such a hard book to read, it's pretty easy and the stories aren't annoyingly long. For me the book as a whole deserves 4/5 stars because most of it is quite interesting to read. |
| ANTHEM cover Ayn Rand's book reminds me so much about Orwell's 1984. It is about this guy, Equality 7-2521 who has been different since he was in The Home of Infants. He has a knack for questioning things he shouldn't and he is a really curios character. He accepts the job that is given to him and hides his personality. This is a short novel and in it he finds love and the meaning of freedom. The most basic thing, that is, humanity is found along with individuality. This book is highly recommendable to anyone who likes dystopia and 1984. Interestingly enough, it reminded me a lot of Orwell's work but it was first published some 10 years before. The character development is extreme, throughout most of the book Equality talks with "we" instead of "I" and that makes it so much more interesting. I liked how this book was quick (mere 100 pages) and it still told a great story. Standing out was punished in this society but he still managed to do that, survive and thrive. I especially loved how the base of human nature can never be oppressed. Maybe not in many people at the same time but humans can try to change as much as they want and still wind up with that which makes us human. I give this book 4.5/5 stars |
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Me and Earl and the Dying Girl book cover
This novel, written by Jesse Andrews was pretty cool. The story revolves around Greg, a filmmaking aficionado who recreates (or tries to) movies with his only friend Earl. He has always been invisible in high school, avoiding groups and blending in with everybody. All changes when his childhood friend, Rachel, gets leukemia and his mother coerces him into hanging out with her. They become friends, along with Earl and they show her their movies. This had never happened before. Rachel stops her treatment so they make The Worst Film Ever Made for her. Meeting Rachel and doing that film changed their lives and their college decisions.
I liked this book, it gave me an existential crisis but I liked it. It was easy and fast paced, also the vocabulary made it even easier to read. It was really interesting how the type of narrative changed constantly. From regular conversation to bullet points to libretto form. It made the novel an easier read. Also, Greg's character is quite interesting. His goal is to be invisible, he likes movies, he makes constant jokes to avoid being serious but above all I love how he became honest with Rachel and not only did he make jokes but he liked talking to her. I also enjoyed how throughout the book he said they weren't friends but when Rachel was in a critical state he went to see her and you could see how he would miss her when she was gone. The book was great, Andrews took a good story and developed it without needing romance. I think it was really important to make them just friends.
4.5/5 stars for this one.
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| Forbidden book cover This book, written by Tabitha Suzuma, was extraordinary. The story is about two siblings, Maya and Lochan, who have to take care of their three younger siblings. They have always been close although lately they seem to develop stronger feelings for each other. They seem just like two siblings who love each other. This is, until they kiss after Maya's date with Nico. The book was... something else. It was a bit slow at first but when things started to happen it got weirder. It was nicely written and a very fast read. The message it sends is that love is unconditional, you can't choose who you fall in love with. I would've given the book 3/5 stars except for the fact that the ending was so shocking. That one-paged plot-twist was something else. I actually had to re-read the whole page to make sure I understood. Considering this, the ending couldn't have gone any other way without a disappointment. I congratulate the author for daring to write a GOOD book on such a difficult topic. Their relationship can make you uncomfortable at times due to the fact that they being siblings is not something easy to forget. In overall it was a good book, the ending made it even better. Without it I wouldn't have liked it half as much. 4/5 stars |
