Alavi Anan Meem
While some might see Love in the Time of Cholera as a love story, the relentless narrative of Gabriel García Márquez challenges such an interpretation. Instead, the novel presents love in many of its forms. From forbidden and unrequited love to obsession and desire, Márquez leaves no aspect of love unexamined. [b:Twilight 41865 Twilight (The Twilight Saga, #1) Stephenie Meyer https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1700522826l/41865.SY75.jpg 3212258], [b:Wuthering Heights 6185 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388212715l/6185.SY75.jpg 1565818], [b:The Great Gatsby 4671 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490528560l/4671.SY75.jpg 245494], and [b:Great Expectations 2623 Great Expectations Charles Dickens https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631687432l/2623.SY75.jpg 2612809] are grouped in my head because in their exploration of human emotions their characters' actions often blur the lines between affection and selfishness. Fermina's decision to marry for stability rather than happiness leaves her feeling like a ghost in her own life, while Florentino's 622 reveal a darker side to his romantic nature. In my reviews of these stories, I often find myself having to justify why I am so drawn to the theme of unrequited love. Recognizing that literature doesn't always depict healthy relationships or idealized versions of humanity, some of us still find ourselves drawn to these stories because they reflect aspects of our own experiences, emotions, and struggles. Themes of longing, desire, and emotional connection in dark settings resonate with readers with trauma, as they reflect the complexities of their experiences, potentially fostering acceptance of oneself. Despite their flaws, these characters are multidimensional enough to invite empathy. I love that.
Okay, let's start with the obvious. This is yet another in a long line of popular YA trotting out the same stereotypical heroines, childish misunderstandings, unimaginative rumours, transparent lies, shitty parents, dramatic kisses (that happen right as the fireworks go off behind the couple on New Year's Eve), watered down language and best friends who also double as your shrink. We know what's going to happen before we read it. We've read a hundred like it before. Why, then, do we keep going back to it? I believe a potent combination of nostalgia and the comfort of a familiar narrative structure is at work. It's why adults still read YA. They liked it because they could relate to the themes explored in it when they were teenagers discovering themselves and the world around them (but mostly themselves) for the first time. Then the mere exposure effect took over. Repeated exposure created preference and they became hooked. It is the same reason we crawl back to our exes and into toxic relationships, the same reason we play songs on repeat even after we kind of hate them and the same reason we can't stop watching Disney movies. Let's face it, stereotypes make it easier for us to read because we don't have to put in time and effort behind processing the unfamiliar. We can just sit back and trust the story to take over and do what it's done in the past. I'd like to say this though. While Isla is really another [b:Anna 6936382 Anna and the French Kiss (Anna and the French Kiss, #1) Stephanie Perkins https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358271931s/6936382.jpg 7168450] and definitely no [b:Lola 9961796 Lola and the Boy Next Door (Anna and the French Kiss, #2) Stephanie Perkins https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358271832s/9961796.jpg 7149084], some of it really hit me hard. I couldn't help but relate to it. Josh and Isla had to go through the agony of separation, work through the anxiety, depression and withdrawal that comes with it, deal with doubts, cope with the dreadful reality of getting caught and get past parental disapproval. This was painful to read because it was all too familiar. I might have cried a little when Josh sends Isla a worn T-shirt that smells like him and she sends her scarf back as a peace offering even though they're fighting. It was all too real. I also have to say this. ISLA IS SUCH A BITCH. I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE MADE HER AUTISTIC BEST FRIEND APOLOGISE TO HER FOR HIS AUTISM. I CAN'T BELIEVE SHE BROKE UP WITH HER BOYFRIEND BECAUSE SHE WAS JEALOUS OF AN EX THAT WASN'T EVEN IN HIS LIFE. HOW SELFISH CAN SHE BE? What went wrong, Stephanie Perkins? How could you go from my beautiful, sparkly Lola to this?
This seizes me by the neck and forces me to admit how terrifying it feels to be in love, how the fear grows with the love until it becomes an obsession as well.
It forces me to admit that love often becomes a cycle of hurting and being hurt and then makes me laugh at myself for not even wanting to end that cycle. "I wanted to hurt you but the victory is that I could not stomach it."
It makes me love being in love when I almost forget how to.
Throw in a few conspiracy theories, a professor, and a gasp, how original murder to set it off, and you've got Angels and Demons. This book might as well have been written for children, it has no emotions, no sentiments or gut reaction or humanity. It's a thriller, and like all thrillers it's fast paced and explosive and chilling but it just HAS. NO. HEART. Angels and Demons isn't great literature, but I don't always want to read great literature. Sometimes I just want a GOOD READ (lame, I know) and Angels and Demons was entertainment at it's most bookish form. :D
The kind of book you could reread 10 times and still find something new in every time.
The Night Circus is a magical circus that appears only at night. Within its tents, illusionists, fortune-tellers, and rival magicians entertain audiences, a blend between Hogwarts and Neil Gaiman's surreal worlds.
In 2012 I considered myself a ‘connoisseur' of immersive prose xD, and was immediately drawn to the world of The Night Circus. Morgenstern's lively descriptions, coupled with imaginative illusions and a diverse cast of characters, really got me. Surprisingly, it was the absence of a conventional plot that heightened my appreciation for the novel. While others enjoyed plot-driven narratives, I found myself hooked on the language, emotion, and unique perspective offered by Morgenstern. Though the novel ultimately offers a tidy resolution, I liked the comfort that comes with such closure back then.
Reflecting on past debates over the merits of storytelling, I've come to realise that while a strong plot and well-developed characters were typically considered essential by my friends, I appreciated the cinematic appeal of “no plot” books more, a genre that The Night Circus has been criticized for falling into. Its appeal lies in its exploration of the blurred lines between fantasy and reality. The vague dreamlike quality of the narrative and the characters mirrors the nature of the circus itself, sparking an interplay that my inner child likes. In Erin Morgenstern's whimsical prose I see echoes of my own fantastical daydreams from childhood. Like Tolkien's early language inventions, or Carroll's absurd logic, Morgenstern's prolonged “world-play” holds my attention with its intricate ‘nonsense' imagination like all childhood inventiveness.
During my preteen years, my best friend began pretending to be a boy named Alex, spinning a story of being from a different religion but willing to convert for me. I never met Alex but we went on to text, on and off, for the next few years. I felt unlovable enough to happily embrace this delusion for a considerable length of time. When she confessed it was her all along, our friendship shattered, leaving me feeling embarrassed and betrayed. It would take me a decade more to see us both for the repressed and fanciful little girls we were, a revelation that lingers in my thoughts.In my early twenties, I came across “From the Land of the Moon” by Milena Agus. The simple story, where a young woman recounts her grandmother's life of arranged marriage, infertility, and solace in a passing romantic encounter with a veteran at a spa, only to unearth a hidden notebook after her death revealing that the affair had been almost entirely fictional, struck a chord. I saw myself in the grandmother's struggle, becoming aware of the absurdly thin and rather beautiful line between imagination and madness. It forced me to confront my own delusions, the consequence of a trauma similar to the one which prompted the grandmother's longing for compassion so intensely it drove her to imagine kindness into reality in its absence.These reflections resurface with greater frequency in my late twenties. Is it any wonder some of my favourite books growing up were stories of unrequited love, such as [b:Love in the Time of Cholera 9712 Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel García Márquez https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1644691354l/9712.SY75.jpg 3285349], [b:The Great Gatsby 4671 The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490528560l/4671.SY75.jpg 245494], [b:Great Expectations 2623 Great Expectations Charles Dickens https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631687432l/2623.SY75.jpg 2612809] and most recently [b:White Nights 1772910 White Nights Fyodor Dostoevsky https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1450699039l/1772910.SX50.jpg 4111509]? How many of us must hold onto such functional delusions to survive life?
I knew sexy twilight existed but I didn't know pretentious twilight existed until now lol.
And
.
.
.
well.
It's
not
going
to
deliver
itself.
That was really adorable, but as cool as Cabel is, I liked Janie's voice better.
Amazon's Top 20 Books of the Year (#6)Amazon's Best Young Adult List (#1)2011 New York Times Notable Children's BookHuffington Post Top 10 YA Books of 20112011 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year2011 Kirkus Best Books for TeensAmazon's Top 20 Books of the Year (#6)Amazon's Best Young Adult List (#1)2011 New York Times Notable Children's BookHuffington Post Top 10 YA Books of 20112011 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year2011 Kirkus Best Books for TeensAnd there has never been a better place to say this:BELIEVE THE HYPE, PEOPLE. I can't do Daughter of Smoke and Bone justice, no matter what I write.It's going to be legen-wait for it-NO LOVE TRIANGLE! Yet another book with no love triangles! Laini Taylor writes about starcrossed insta-love and still manages to make me fall in love with her words. I take my hat off to her. (This review will sing praises of her. You've been warned.) She is a true story teller, like Homer. I think she can literally breathe life into letters on a page, like Silvertongue from [b:Inkheart 28194 Inkheart (Inkheart, #1) Cornelia Funke http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328866790s/28194.jpg 2628323]. Her lyrical prose! She writes pure magic. This woman is a abstract daydream of the writer I want to be one day. STORY:Daughter of Smoke and Bone is about, among other things: doorways to another world and wishes made out of teeth. Yes, you read that right. There is a violent war raging between the Seraphim and the Chimera as I write this, and a mysterious, seventeen-year-old girl from Prague is caught in between. KAROU: “Skip meeting him? The butterflies, the pounding heart, the blushing? The part where you enter each other's magnetic fields for the first time, and it's like invisble lines of energy are drawing you together-“ Karou, our artist and the heroine of this novel, is the daughter of smoke and bone. She collects languages and teeth. She has long (bona fide) azure hair and she lives with monsters. She isn't annoying at all, at odds with most other teen heroines. AKIVA: “By the time he was sent back to his regiment at Morwen Bay, he could have used a little more time to perfect his Chimaera accent, but he thought he was basically ready for what came next, in all its bright and shining madness.” Akiva is nothing more than gorgeous eye candy to begin with. Just one more tortured soul, I thought. Except he was a warrior. But then he changed. I fell in love with him about the time he began to fall in love with Madrigal. From DREAM-LOST and BLOOD WILL OUT, where he tells us about how he fell in love with her, I fell for him HARD. So, yes, I do end up liking Akiva a whole lot more than I should by the end.And then there's Zuzana and Brimstone, the two who made this story so much better for me.ZUZANA: The perfect best friend.BRIMSTONE: Need I say more?All I can say is, if “Hope is the real magic” . . . can I hope [b:Days of Blood and Starlight 12812550 Days of Blood and Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone, #2) Laini Taylor http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1337964452s/12812550.jpg 17961723] into existence sooner then?
Chomsky and Pappé argue in Gaza In Crisis that while war may seem inevitable, to act as if it is would be the gravest mistake. They propose a two-part plan that aims for a one-state solution: strengthen democracy in the US so people's voices shape foreign policy, and challenge propaganda in Israel to promote critical thinking.
Stepping beyond the confines of academia, I anxiously dove into my first job, contending with excessive self-doubt and a deficit of ambition. Initially thrust into the role of managing HR amid rapid scaling I, then a naive and young graduate, grappled with the complexities of hiring at breakneck speed. We went from a team of 40 to a team of 100 in one and a half years, then had to navigate a storm of layoffs that left a team of less than 20 during the recession. I felt like a monkey at a typewriter, throwing bananas in the dark and praying one hits the bullseye. This experience taught me intimately the challenges faced by startups—scarce resources, time constraints, and the responsibility of nurturing a resilient team (i.e. manipulate employee loyalty) in an uncertain climate.
Halfway into this frenzied journey, my boss handed me this lifeline, and partly because I had no idea what I was doing, the solution (or rather how it's worded) really spoke to me: create a business that exists apart from you - 1) create a clearly defined structure through documentation for your people through which they can test themselves and be tested, 2) design systems that produce consistent predictable results by people trained in your way, and 3) systematise your business in such a way that it could be replicated 5,000 times. It was the recipe to create order from chaos! I was a novice chef being asked to cook a gourmet meal without burning down the kitchen. This was the book that motivated and cheered me on as the flames danced around me.
Why couldn't it have gone on longer?!
This was so short and so sweet. But it ended before it barely began. I don't know what this was about, but I never would've guessed that the pretty as a picture girl on the cover would've made it to a “dog dinner.”
Besides, it has been said too many times, “Scars are just tattoos with better stories.”
Hello, readers! This happens to be the first book I added to Goodreads. So I will consider it my first “review”.
Since I was young I've identified as an avid reader, and I believe I'll remain a lifelong lover of books. In my formative years I fortunately gravitated towards literary classics. They made me love reading, by 1) being imaginatively epic, and 2) letting me eclectically explore a diversity of perspectives. Reading has been deeply personal for me. I do not know why others read. I know I read so immoderately in my youth, books left concussions on my mind rather than conclusions. Feeling like a cosmic misfit, I turned to contemporary fiction in my teens to ease a discontent of the mind that classics couldn't and found it to be too blindingly brilliant, offering little relief. Most of the books I have read in between have been for solace or escape - a plain but sustaining fare of romance, fantasy and thrillers providing a sanctuary from reality.
I found connection and community through reading too. I met my former partner, the strongest reader I know, on Goodreads. He remains a cherished friend because I can confidently say he is one of the best people I know, and the world is a better place because he exists in it. Would I have been able to say that if he had not been a reader?
This was one of my favourite books as a teenager, Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella; I had a dog-eared paperback of it back home. When I first reviewed it I'd written “Nothing I've ever read in this genre has measured up to Can You Keep A Secret. I've read this book a gazillion times, and it still makes me laugh until my sides split every time. A lot of people (okay, none) agree with me, but this is Kinsella's best book.” Thinking of it years later, I can still say I remember it affectionately.
To me, this ordinary book is akin to a long, hot bath. So as you can tell, reading to me is a comfy escape from life's discomforts.
You've reached my review's finale, so I will take your leave with these questions:
1) What compels you to read?
2) How do you measure a book's worth?
3) Are bookworms as precious to you as books?