Book Review: Wonder

wonder-2.jpg

Title: Wonder
Author: Raquel J. Palacio
Genre: Children
Recommended Reading Age: Everyone
Pages: 315
Level of difficulty: 2/5 Dictionaries

 
Brief Introduction

Auggie wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things – eating ice cream, playing on his Xbox. He feels ordinary – inside. But ordinary kids don’t make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids aren’t stared at wherever they go.

Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life. Now, for the first time, he’s being sent to a real school – and he’s dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted – but can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, underneath it all?

Favourite Quote

“Doctors have come from distant cities
Just to see me
Stand over my bed
Disbelieving what they’re seeing

They say I must be one of the wonders of god’s own creation
And as far as they can see they can offer no explanation”

~ Natalie Merchant, “Wonder”

Reasons for Recommendation

With the recent craze of social media, youngsters are highly focused on their facial features and have become more and more materialistic. The book gives insight to what truly is important in this fast-developing World – to be grateful and accept ourselves as who we are. Hence, the book is a great lesson for all.

8727394

The book teaches us that the we should never judge a book by its cover, a person by his or her face. There is always more to meets the eye. The book shall make you more appreciative of the things you have, and resilient when hard times come. Wonder is one of the many books that has left a great impression on me, while changing my attitude towards society. I strongly recommend you read it!

Movie Trailer

The book has its own movie! Here’s its trailer!

 

photocredit: Google images

Advertisements

Book Review – The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics

Name: The Speechwriter: A Brief Education in Politics
Author: Barton Swaim
ISBN: 978-1-4767-6992-9
Genre: Politics, Non-Fiction, Memoir
Pages: 204
Difficulty: 3/5 Dictionaries

Brief Introduction:

Barton Swaim is new to the world of politics, but he is now a speechwriter for a local governor, and is willing to learn. Indeed, he learns a lot. Through the eyes of Barton Swaim, we get an honest insight into the ins and outs of the world of politics.

Favourite Quote:

“Stella, I wish you had said that.”

She had tears in her eyes.

Reasons Why You Too Should Read It:

  1. What is politics?

Swaim is still trying to figure it out, and you probably are too, so pick up this book! Swaim brings you on a range experiences, from his miniscule tasks to the emotion every staff felt after the governor’s scandal had destroyed their hard work.

  1. It is raw and honest.

Yes, Swaim is neutral in his writing. He ‘wrote [the book] because he had to ” and for you to enjoy. In addition, he is not afraid to tell you how he felt when his writing was sent back by the governor, or what he did to try to keep his job. This allows us readers to trust the book, thus giving us reliable insight into the world of politics.

  1. How is language used?

Of course, with the job of a speechwriter, Swaim’s experience revolves around writing. In fact, there are a few chapters that focus solely on writing and the use of language. For example, Swaim teaches us the importance of nuance when he begins transcribing his letters to understand “the reason for [the governor’s] choice of words”. In addition, I realised that we all have a unique set of writing style, and it speaks volume* about us.

*You’ll understand the reason for the phrase if you read the book 🙂

A long overdue book review, my apologies. I would love to hear what you guys think and know what book(s) you are reading now. Do leave a comment!
Love, Temidayo 

Book Review: Book vs. Movie Edition – The Great Gatsby

Book

The Great Gatsbyjpg
The Great Gatsby

Name: The Great Gatsby
Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
ISBN: 978-0-00-736865-5
Genre: Romance, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 140
Difficulty: 4/5 Dictionaries

Plot Summary:

From the eyes of Nick Carraway, who we eventually find out is the only true friend of Jay Gatsby’s, we learn what Gatsby has sacrificed and done for Daisy Buchanan’s love.
In short, the story is about love, and how unreliable love can be especially when it is built on lies and misguided principles.

Favourite Quote:

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Reasons Why You Too Should Read It:

1. It’s a great book to boost your vocabulary.

Basically, for half of the book, I was stumbling on two or three new words on every page. Words such as hilarity, echolalia, caterwauling. It’s also a recommended book for those who shall be taking the SAT.

2. You learn a number of moral lessons.

You learn the ugly trait of greed and carelessness. You learn the hard truth that life isn’t always fair. You also learn that eventually the ones that we can truly depend on when all things fail is family. There are some friends that might become family, but not if the relationship was built on lies.

3. It’s a classic.

The book tells a story of the bygone age of US history. In the 20s, the parties were bigger, the morals were looser and by 1933, prohibition ended because it was clear, it had backfired. People were making their own moonshine or getting alcohol through other illegal means. The Great Gatsby is a window to the world that most Americans wanted to learn from as America became a wealthy superpower in the years after.

Movie

The Great Gatsby (2013 Edition)

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

If I had three words to describe the movie, they would be: wild, jazz and elaborate.

In my opinion, the book trumps the movie because there is more sincerity and emotion in and between the characters. Such as that seen through Daisy and Gatsby’s love, Wilson’s pain and Nick’s disappointment at the end of the novel. I believe this is because the movie was produced for the big screen and is thus flamboyant. The audience is distracted by all the glam, and the focus on the moral lessons are minimized.

In addition, although I understand it is natural for there to be some slight differences between the movie and the book, I am pretty surprised by one. In the movie, I think Gatsby is portrayed to be a villain. One example would be when he takes Nick out to lunch and decides to tell him his story while speeding across town. It was clear that he was scheming – trying to confuse Nick and get him to believe his lies. Also, there were strange phone calls and expressions that supported such an impression.

In the book on the other hand, upon my first reading, Gatsby is portrayed to be a man who is foolishly in love. Even though he isn’t a saint, his mistakes and evil doings all seem to be the fault of Daisy’s or have Daisy as the reason.

When it comes to a book with a movie, I always read the book before watching the movie (which ever was published first, books/plays based on a movie are not as common). I would recommend doing so because you get the most accurate version of the story. What about you? What’s your habit? 

P.s I would love to hear your take on which was better, the movie or the book?

P.s.s The review was also uploaded to Goodreads, do have a look!
https://poetryandproze.com/tag/book-reviews/
poetryandproze.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-34
94397
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:QSQ7WU4XR3SCCG46SY23WCTOF63WVTGM
<urn:uuid:3e856205-0db0-4a12-b2a7-1c9d5bcb7836>
2018-08-18T13:58:43Z
192.0.78.25
text/html
sha1:KYXFDAWNRNM35O3VAFLQDJLT6RPDUJYJ
<urn:uuid:7f527ecb-848b-4db0-b743-ca73c8041b7c>
https://poetryandproze.com/tag/book-reviews/
response
<urn:uuid:adf3dc56-349d-4036-9c4a-e199ba04df8f>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-34
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for August 2018
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-157-100-246.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/