Cal Stephanides, narrator of Middlesex, tells the story of the past three generations of his family. He begins with his grandparents' incestuous escape from war-torn Asia Minor, through his parents' all-American courtship, and then through his own childhood. Cal was born Calliope Helen Stephanides, believed by everyone to be a girl until adolescence began to reveal the truth. Cal intersperses the epic of his family's story with updates on his adult life working for the embassy in Berlin, commenting on the world's view of him, and meeting someone to whom he finally might be able to tell his secret.
I read Middlesex for school. In the past year, I have read five books for fun and eleven for school. If you follow IWMCW regularly, then you've probably noticed... But I actually enjoyed Middlesex and have had to do only a bit of work with it so far, so I haven't yet wrung it out. When I had to pick my novel for summer reading, I was down to this one and Cider House Rules by John Irving. My mom said that she thought I'd really enjoy Jeffrey Eugenides' writing style, so I got Middlesex (also, it was the slightly shorter one).
Cal Stephanides, narrator of Middlesex, tells the story of the past three generations of his family. He begins with his grandparents' incestuous escape from war-torn Asia Minor, through his parents' all-American courtship, and then through his own childhood. Cal was born Calliope Helen Stephanides, believed by everyone to be a girl until adolescence began to reveal the truth. Cal intersperses the epic of his family's story with updates on his adult life working for the embassy in Berlin, commenting on the world's view of him, and meeting someone to whom he finally might be able to tell his secret.
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I remember when this book began to appear in the world; it was published when I was seven. I had friends who read it then or shortly after, and I always meant to read it, too. I didn't acquire it until Christmas 2015, and didn't read it until this month. (I really don't have time for anything anymore.)
Nobody Owens, called Bod, has lived most of his life in a graveyard. After his whole family was murdered by a strange man called Jack, the baby Bod was adopted by a ghost couple and a mysterious person who is neither alive nor dead became his guardian. Bod grows up in the graveyard, befriending the ghosts, discovering ancient and hidden treasure, just avoiding the clutches of ghouls, and making eventual forays into the world of the living. But when he leaves the graveyard, he always finds himself in danger--small dangers, and then the larger danger of the man Jack, who is still out there and looking for him. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts (Maxine Hong Kingston, Picador 1976, 1981)8/30/2016 Well, well, well. This has been interesting. The Woman Warrior is the second of my two assigned books for this summer (of which today, August 30th, is the last day). All us rising sophomores had to read A Thousand Splendid Suns and those of us going into honors English also picked one memoir from a list of four. Being me, I chose The Woman Warrior, partly because the description on our choice sheet called it the most challenging of the four.
They weren't kidding. Considering that I only just finished this book minutes ago (probably about an hour by the time I finish this review), my thoughts are not completely processed, but I wanted to put up this one last review before we go into IWMCW's awkward season--AKA, the school year, during which my reviews can be far between and come in flocks. Although I hope it won't be long before I can review Origins, another science book! Maxine Hong Kingston grew up the oldest (although maybe just the oldest surviving) child of Chinese immigrants during the 1940s and 50s. In her memoir, she tells in five short-story-like chapters of her experiences balancing cultures and trying to understand that which she has never directly been a part of but is expected to know all about. She focuses particularly on being a Chinese-American woman. Themes of silence, mother-daughter relationships, culture, tradition, sexism and racism, insanity, and stories convey these experiences. I've been reading Origins by Neil deGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith, but I had to put it aside partway through to do my summer reading for school... So it's been a while. But here's the first of my summer books. Ordinarily I don't review books that I'm assigned, but I thought I could make an exception for this one.
Mariam is a harami--a bastard child. When her father, rich city-dweller Jalil Khan, found out that his maid was pregnant with his child, he cast Mariam's mother away, to the outskirts of a nearby village. Mariam spends her childhood anxiously waiting for weekly visits from Jalil, who gives her gifts, tells her stories, and teaches her to fish. Nana, by contrast, speaks harshly to Mariam and warns her that Jalil is not the god Mariam thinks he is. But when tragedy destroys her family, teenage Mariam is shipped off to Kabul to marry Rasheed, a middle-aged, foul-tempered shoemaker. Everything changes. Laila is a well-educated Kabuli girl with friends, a crush, and two loving parents. But the absence of her two much older brothers, who went to fight for the jihad, leaves her mother bedridden and listless most days. And as the war intensifies and the fighting factions keep firing on Kabul, everyday life becomes ever more dangerous. People leave the city. Her friends all leave the city. And when disaster comes for Laila's family, she is brought together with Mariam, Rasheed's reclusive wife down the street. A Thousand Splendid Suns follows these two lives as they come together amidst war after war in Afghanistan--from the Soviet invasion in the 1970's to the bombs dropped by Bush after 9/11 and the scattering of the Taliban. Struggling to survive in intolerable circumstances--on the street and in the home--Mariam and Laila must become friends if they are to claim their right to happiness and love. Wow. Okay. I've been reading this book for a long time (like nearly two months), and so I had plenty of time to think about what I would write for this review.
I randomly picked up this book at Powell's Books in the fall. (The cover is beautiful.) I didn't get around to starting it until late February or early March, because my to-read stack is always so massive... I noticed the profusion of praise on the covers, of course, but I had no idea that Hild would be so amazing. This book isn't thick, but it's heavy--heavy not with ink and paper, I'm sure, but with the story. It's the seventh century in Britain, and a three-year old girl's childhood ends when her mother's companion, Onnen, comes into the woods where young Hild and Onnen's son Cian are playing. Onnen announces that Hild's father--Hereric, the aetheling (potential heir)--is dead. And then Hild is being groomed to be the seer of the king, Edwin, her great-uncle. For a child, she is brilliant. For a child, she has a huge amount of responsibility. One misstep, one "vision" that doesn't come true, one wrong friend, could lead to the loss of everything and everyone she loves, including her own life. Matters grow more complicated when the bishops and priests of the new Christian religion start arriving at Edwin's halls and weaving themselves in the political and religion fabric of the island. Hild is the story of the early life of Saint Hilda of Whitby, drawn from the very slim records of history and Nicola Griffith's brilliant imagination. I actually read this one before Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which you might have gathered from the huge gap between the reviewing of a little book like Equal Rites and something I read in a day. But I reviewed Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe before The Name of the Wind since, you know, a book that one reads in a day is a book that one has a lot of enthusiasm about. I finished The Name of the Wind two weeks ago now (keep an eye out for a review of the second book of Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn!), and I nearly gave up on writing a review about it. It sat around on my desk and I did not write about it. I actually put it on the shelf. But it's rare that I just don't review something (so far, that's only happened with The Help, which I'd already analyzed far too much since it was for school, and besides, you can find about eighty million reviews for it elsewhere), so here's my opinion on The Name of the Wind for you...
An obscure inn sits in a world ravaged by war and unholy creatures. Name anything, and it's "bad." But Kote, the red-haired proprietor of the Waystone, brings in a small crowd of regulars every night. The men eat, drink, tell stories, and complain about the state of the world while, behind them, Kote polishes bottles and his assistant, Bast, sweeps the floor. Even the late arrival of a regular who has been attacked by a strange, spider-like monster barely disturbs the inn's peace. But one night, a new man shows up at the Waystone. His name is Chronicler, and he claims to know who unassuming Kote really is--Kvothe, the legendary hero. Chronicler offers to take down the story of Kvothe's life, to get the real version out there and dispel the rumors that have flown around the world for years. And so we learn the truth of the humble Kote--how he was born the son of travelling actors, began his training in sympathy with an arcanist met on the road, moved on to the great University, and started to become the hero known by many names. Equal Rites: A Novel of Discworld® (Written by Terry Pratchett, Published by Harper in 1987)7/16/2015 It's all my piano teacher's fault. Maria. She kept telling me for perhaps a year to read Discworld by Terry Pratchett, and, finally, in February 2014, I went ahead and got The Color of Magic on my Kindle. It seems that very few people actually read Discworld books in the order they were published, but I believe that if an author had books published in a certain order, there had to be a reason, and so I will read them exactly how those who were fans at the start would've done. Equal Rites was the third Discworld book to be published. It's the third Discworld that I've read. I am held fast in its 41-book grip.
Sadly, there can be no more Discworld, at least not by its original author. March 12th, despite being the 8th birthday of my cousin Ava and the 14th birthday of my friend Megan, also happened to be the day that Sir Terry died of Alzheimer's. On the bright side, I think that it must help readers to get over the death of a favorite author when said author created a humorous Death WHO TALKS ALL IN CAPITALS. HELLO, SIR TERRY. WE MEET IN PERSON AT LAST. Anyway! Equal Rites. The first two Discworld books feature Rincewind, a wizard who only knows one spell, and Twoflower, the Disc's first tourist. Equal Rites introduces a new set of characters, bringing us into the world of witches, wizards who are not failures, and the inner workings of the Unseen University, where wizards are educated. One stormy day, Drum Billet arrives in the little town of Bad Ass, high up in the Ramtops. He knows that he will die in approximately six minutes, but before he does, he must pass on his wizardly powers to an eighth son of an eighth son. Unfortunately, the specific newborn baby destined to become a wizard...is a girl. When you only have six minutes left of life, it's a bit hard to find a different baby to give your magic staff to, and so Drum Billet has no time to correct his mistake, and Eskarina Smith becomes the Disc's first female wizard. As she grows up, Granny Weatherwax, Bad Ass' witch, believes that she can train Esk to be a witch, but it soon becomes apparent that it's no good. Esk has learned the ways of witches quickly, but the wizard magic just aches to come bursting out of her. The only way around it is to get Esk accepted to the all-male Unseen University and have her properly trained up. In their journey, Granny and Esk must face cities, innkeepers, rivers, low-quality travel, stuttering boys, monstrous Things, and the prejudices of the University's faculty. I found Esther Friesner's Princesses of Myth series on my Kindle. Her book Sphinx's Princess showed up as a suggestion, and I read it and liked it. I soon discovered the great world of Princesses of Myth books, and now I'm thoroughly inundated in them. Deception's Princess is the seventh Princesses of Myth book so far. Friesner writes these two-book series on various historical princesses--real or mythical--from all around the world. Even with only four females in the series, she's managed to pull them from extremely diverse cultures--we have seen Helen of Ancient Greece in Nobody's Princess/Prize, Nefertiti of Ancient Egypt in Sphinx's Princess/Queen, Himiko of medieval Japan in Spirit's Princess/Chosen, and now Maeve of Iron Age Ireland in Deception's Princess. Throughout all of these books (I've read them all except for Nobody's Prize and Spirit's Chosen), there's definitely the running theme of the royal girl growing up surrounded by perfection, realizing that everything isn't quite so fantastic as she thought before, and rebelling to take her own path. For the most part, this creates a strong unity between all of the radically different cultures of the books, but it is sometimes the books' weakest point (more on that later).
Maeve of Connacht lives just as a princess should--her five older sisters do make things difficult sometimes, but her mother Cloithfinn is strong and fierce, and her father Lord Eochu has just become High King of Eiru after he cut off the head of Lord Fachtna, the old High King, in a battle. Now Fachtna's head sits in the lintel above their doorway--the place of honor. Maeve has managed to cut a piece of hair off of the end of the tail of Dubh, widely reputed to be the fiercest bull around. Quite an accomplishment for a five-year-old girl, she thinks! But as Maeve gets older, her sisters are sent off into fosterage with other families--the annoying ones and, less fortunately, sweet Derbriu, Maeve's only friend--and every single male guest at the Cruachan ringfort keeps following her around, seeing her as either their wife or daughter-in-law. Maeve decides that the only way to throw off these troublesome suitors is to learn to be boyish, and the best way to do that is to take fighting lessons. But it's not easy for a princess to suddenly start vanishing and learn to swing a sword and toss a spear, and her secret lessons don't remain secret for long. Punishment results, and the outcome will haunt Maeve for a long time. But when she is nearly fifteen years old, a druid named Master Iobar shows up at Cruachan, along with a very strange son named Odran. The boy's hair is waist-length and blue-black, he wears a thick cloak even in May. But strangest of all, Odran carries with him two animals, Guennola the stoat and Muirin the red fox. Maeve and Odran quickly become friends, spending time together healing injured animals in an old shack. Maeve learns how much Odran loves healing small animals, and that he doesn't want to be a druid like his father, which is the path that Iobar is set on his son following. Like Odran, Maeve resists the future set before her, but neither one of them will get their way without a fight... |
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August 2017
AuthorI am Fiona, a 16-year-old person. I write reviews of books that I read. I love reading, writing, spoonerisms, word jokes, accents, In Which chapters, parentheses, long dashes, et ceteras, and acronyms. Categories
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