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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Apr 14, 2015 13:01:10 GMT
Wait . . . Warriors series about cats like . . . Jaypaw? *looks up* I read "The Power of Three" part of that series!!!
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Post by StarlightDragons on Apr 14, 2015 16:50:41 GMT
yeah, those! I used to be so obsessed with Warriors, though interest's really worn off...
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Post by Mikauzoran on Apr 29, 2015 2:01:21 GMT
Well, I finished The Moonstone awhile ago, and it was really great. I actually liked the rest of the narrators except for the attorney, so that was good. I was a little disappointed in the mystery aspect, how that was resolved, but I think it was a good read anyway.
After that I read some more Wilkie Collins: The Haunted Hotel. It was really interesting and very compelling, but...in the end the supernatural and mystery aspects kind of fell flat. But it was still really fun to read. I liked the characters in both books.
Then was Heart of Darkness. There were some parts that were really interesting, but I didn't particularly like or dislike it. I think Joseph Conrad is a good writer, but I can't say that I was particularly attached to anything about the book. It was kind of purposely ambiguous. When it got to the end I felt like I'd really missed out on something, like there was something deeper going on that had gone completely over my head, but then I read the wiki article and found that I hadn't missed anything after all. It didn't take long to read, but that book just left me thinking "Hn. Well. I guess that's it. Maybe I should go visit Africa sometime." I had heard that it was one of those great pieces of literature, but...I don't know. It was interesting at least.
Now I'm working on Frankenstein, and I really like it. The first few "chapters", the letters, didn't really hook me, and I was kind of wondering when things were going to get to the point, but once they did, I could see the type of framing that Mary Shelley was setting up, and that was kind of cool. I like Victor, and I can really sympathize with the poor creature. It's super heartbreaking, and I just want the poor baby to find a place where he belongs and some friends! I'm on chapter sixteen of twenty-four, so we'll see how this goes. I expect the worst, honestly.
Frankly, I'm really surprised with this book. Victor Frankenstein isn't the mad scientist that I've always thought him to be, and the creature isn't some stupid, mute monster. There's no hunchbacked assistant named Igor, no laboratory with lightning bolts and crazy equipment. This is completely different than what I thought I knew of "Frankenstein". I mean, the creature isn't green. He's got a head full of thick black hair and really white pearly teeth. He's really big, about eight feet tall, and a lot bulkier than a normal man, but he's not slow in the least. He's described as being quite lithe and agile. And the biggest shocker: he speaks. Like, really well. The guy is super eloquent and very intelligent.
So. In conclusion, I'm really blown out of the water by Frankenstein. If you have some time, pick up a copy. It's not too long and could probably be finished over a weekend.
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faliara
New Member
Blblblblbl
Posts: 37
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Post by faliara on Apr 29, 2015 2:28:41 GMT
I'm not reading anything at the moment (I usually spend my time with the iPad, drawing, searching Tumblr, searching fanfiction and other types of searches on top of being the game master of two roleplays) but whenever my family and I go out, we usually go to the bookstore for any book that interests us. I usually look out for series The Magic Thief, Seven Wonders and Diary of A Wimpy Kid, with the priority in that order.
... Oh shit.
I never finished the latest book of Seven Wonders.
... Excuse me, I'll be speed-reading in my bed.
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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on Apr 29, 2015 3:47:01 GMT
What? Not at all like popular belief? I need to go read Frankenstein then.
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Post by Mikauzoran on May 1, 2015 1:41:06 GMT
So Frankenstein was a good book. The end was sad and dissatisfying as I had known it would be, but that's okay. I just wanted the creature to make friends and be accepted! T.T
Now I'm reading Wuthering Heights. It's not as God-awful as I expected it to be, though it's not really bad or good. There are points in time when I can really empathize with the characters, but those moments never last long, and after they pass I think, "I don't really like any of you. You're all terrible people, and you deserve what you got." So far anyway. Except for Nelly, the servant/maid/governess/nurse. I like her a lot. She's the one that we're hearing the story from as she tells it to her new master.
But, yeah. I've got about thirteen chapters left to go, and I'm really wondering how all this is going to turn out. I'm wondering how this is going to be a timeless love story because the main heroine is dead. And I didn't like her at all. She's a lot like me, and I can't stand her. Utterly obnoxious, spoiled brat. I'm completely unable to sympathize with her most of the time. Anyway. I'll let you know how it turns out.
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Post by Mikauzoran on May 2, 2015 2:12:59 GMT
Well, Wuthering Heights didn't suck, but I can't say that I really liked it either. I hated all of the characters. The main heroine Catherine and her daughter Cathy...I didn't like either of them. They were horrid, spoiled brats.
I liked the servant Nelly throughout, and I kind of did end up liking Hareton Earnshaw. He was really sweet when he was little, and it's not his fault that he was abused by his father and Heathcliff and raised by a bunch of pigs that didn't teach him how to read or write or anything, so it's not his fault. I believe his sweet nature can be reclaimed if cultivated and nurtured properly.
The rest of them have no excuses. They were terrible, cruel, selfish, and downright bad people. That being said, I was satisfied at the end when they were all dead.
I think Emily Bronte is a good writer, though. I liked her style and everything. The story held my interest, even though I hated the characters. Next we'll see how her sister Charlotte does because I'll be reading Jane Eyre starting Monday.
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Post by Mikauzoran on May 5, 2015 1:52:54 GMT
Well, I read the first thirteen chapters of Jane Eyre today, and I really like this book so far! It's really fascinating to me, and Charlotte Bronte is every bit as good a storyteller as her sister Emily, author of Wuthering Heights. Except I actually like most all of Charlotte's characters. Well, the ones that I'm supposed to like, anyway. The antagonists are flawed, hypocritical people, and I don't like them, but I like Jane and Helen and Miss Temple and Bessie and Mrs. Fairfax and Adele and Mr. Rochester.
Charlotte creates really sympathetic characters. I see a lot of myself in Jane--the parts I like, anyway, like her spirit and her eagerness to learn, her want to be liked. I can relate to her, and I'm honestly interested in her story, even though I have some idea how it goes because I watched a movie version some years ago. The movie completely left out Jane's childhood, so reading about it was really interesting for me because I could see how Jane became the young woman she is.
Updates to follow. Though...I feel like I read too much and I'm posting in this thread too much. ^.^; What's everyone else reading?
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Post by StarlightDragons on May 5, 2015 2:34:31 GMT
we're actually about to read frankenstein in school, although I hear from my classmates that it's not very exciting of a read... I'll have to see for myself XD
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Post by Mikauzoran on May 5, 2015 2:43:20 GMT
P-sha. I liked it very much. I don't know about "exciting" in the "action/adventure" sense of the word, but it's definitely very interesting. I especially liked when the creature told Victor his story. I don't know. It was super touching and really gave me a new perspective on what I thought I knew as "Frankenstein". Now I'm really wondering how the heck our Halloween version of "Frankenstein the monster" came to be. The book is nothing like all that.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.
I think I had the added pleasure of having it read to me. The librivox version of the audiobook had some good readers, so it was actually like the characters were talking to me, telling me their story, so. I maintain that librivox.org is a wonderful resource. There have been some God-awful readers on there, but most of them are quite excellent.
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kkrazy256
Senior Member
I would literally die for any Transformer
Posts: 392
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Post by kkrazy256 on May 5, 2015 3:01:58 GMT
Hmm...Frankenstein, I think I have a copy lying around somewhere. Maybe I should give it a reread. I recall reading it when I was younger and being too scared to flip some pages because I thought the illustrations were terrifiying ^^'
I'm about to give the Great Gatsby a try.
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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on May 5, 2015 3:54:05 GMT
Great Gatsby! We just finished reading that in school! Btw, there's a LOT of symbolism in there . . . Especially with colors. I tried finding Frankenstein in the library today, but what I found was more of a series than a single book . . . However! Rather than finding Frankenstein, I found and started a new series (for me anyway. First book was published in 2009)! It's called "The Books of Umber", the first book being called "Happenstance Found" (so far I know of two more books in the series. I don't know if those are the only other books, but I guess I'll find out as I go through them'). I'm only 55 out of 340 pages in, but I already love it! To me, it's one of those hard-to-put-down books, but I have to go to bed lest I be tired in the morning. But I don't want to . . . Anyway, it's about this boy called Happenstance. Called that. We (readers, characters, and Happenstance himself) have no idea what his real name is. Or even if he has one. It starts out with Hap opening his eyes, pretty sure that he came from pure nothingness. He doesn't know anything about himself, or things/names around them, though the names of common things like brick and water often pop into his mind from what he calls a "spring of knowledge". There's this mysterious voice, and then pretty soon afterward we meet three other characters. I have to say besides Hap, Lord Umber is my favorite XD And also the most intriguing. In one of the more recent chapters I read, he was questioning Hap about names of certain countries, cities, and seas (of which Hap didn't even recognize). And then Umber whispers in sadness names of other things Hap doesn't know, and we don't get to know the names of them until, like, the last chapter I read (which might have been the fifth or sixth). And now I'm really interested, because those were the names of actual cities. Like Tokyo. And Moscow. And now I'm wondering exactly where Lord Umber came from. Future? Other dimension? Did he used to live in our world and got transported to where Hap is now? Anyway, I digress. I think what I really like about this book is that it keeps you guessing, and that we're learning along with the main character who exactly the main character is. Hm. I don't feel like I gave this book justice *sighs*
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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on May 8, 2015 18:32:59 GMT
So I, uh, found out who Happenstance is . . . Still a bunch of questions though.
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Post by Mikauzoran on May 9, 2015 0:17:46 GMT
You said it was a series, Natsumi? Are you still on the first book, or did that happen in the second book?
I finished Jane Eyre yesterday, and it was super awesome. Like, I really liked that book. Jane was a fabulous character, very likable and very realistic. I liked in particular how she wasn't any great beauty or anything, she was just a smart, humble, good person with an unshakable faith and the courage to do what was right.
I don't know if Charlotte Bronte is a better writer than her sister Emily (Wuthering Heights), but I definitely liked Charlotte's Jane Eyre a lot better. I could actually relate with the characters, and they were really sympathetic. I genuinely cared about them whereas I flat out disliked Emily's cast. Both books were very compelling to read and certainly interesting, but I liked Jane Eyre a whoooooole lot better.
And then I finished Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey today. It was okay. The vast majority of the characters were obnoxious and impossible to like, but I liked the main heroine and her love interest, so it was okay. I liked Pride and Prejudice a whole lot better, though. I think this book was supposed to be satirical. A lot of the characters were over-exaggerated and the general tone was kind of sarcastic and playful, poking fun, so... I feel like there were a lot of witty moments in the book, and I can appreciate what Jane Austen was trying to do, but I like her serious works a lot better.
Now I'm reading Anne of Green Gables. I'm three chapters in, and I love Anne! She's such a fun chatterbox with a big imagination. She has the soul of a writer, and that really resonates with me. She's a lot like me when I was younger. One really nifty trait that she shares with me is that if Anne comes across a person/place/thing with a name that doesn't quite suit her, she'll rename it. I thought that I was the only one crazy enough to do that. Seriously. There are a couple streets that I don't like the names of, so I change them in my head. People too. One of my brother's best friends from high school is named Al. It's supposedly short for Albert, but that's a silly name (don't tell him I said so), so I renamed him Alphonse. For realz. And he and my brother's group of friends humor me.
Anyway, More on Anne of Green Gables later.
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Post by Nikudou Natsumi on May 9, 2015 0:59:31 GMT
I believe that was the second book. I mean, at the end of the first book, we found out WHAT he was, but just recently in the beginning of the second book we found out WHO he was. Or rather, who he used to be. I got the second and third books yesterday and couldn't wait to start reading them (*gives previous books she was reading a look between a glance and glare, because she knows she needs to finish them, but finds the Books of Umber much more interesting, but wants to finish the other books before finishing the BoU series*).
I kinda feel sorry for Hap, though, about his name. I mean, the definitions of many, many words that he doesn't know often pop into his head when they're mentioned to him. So shouldn't he know what "happenstance" means? I mean, I don't have anything against it or anything - I actually like how it sounds - but how would you like your name to basically be "coincidence"? Hap himself has never seemed to mind it, though . . .
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