Monthly Archives: maaliskuu 2015

Going Postal is a novel written by Terry Pratchett, who died recently at age of 66. The novel was 33th of Pratchett’s Discworld series. Discworld is a fantasyworld that is a disc on top of four elephants which in turn are on top of a giant turtle. The story focuses on Moist von Lipwig. A man who has lots of fake names. He lived his life by cheating and fooling people by using his talking skills to make them to think that they are making a good bargain.The story begins from gallows. Moist, currently called as Alfred Spangler, is being hanged. He dies, but wakes up. Lord Vetinari has given him a new chance by offering a job of postmaster at the Post Office of Ankh-Morpork. He is being followed by an ancient golem so he won’t attempt to escape. Golems are used as workers with minimum payment for all kinds of jobs. At the old and run-down Post Office Moist finds two men. Junior postman Tolliver Groat, who is really old and worked in the Post Office when it was still fully functoning, and Stanley, a young lad who is into pins. He knows everything about them and is a collector. The Post Office os full of unsent letters, some of them are many decades old, and moist is expected to deliver them and raise the Office back to it’s feet. The work is even harder with the Grand Trunk around. It’s a company that sends messages as data code between cities via clacks towers that recieve and pass messages. Moist is determined to bring down the company head Reacher Gilt, a businessman who only thinks money and his own profit. The theme is about business and financial world. I found it interesting to see how the underdog Moist von Lipwig takes out a big corporation. The book had a lot of connectons about our businessworld. I really enjoyed the story and all that was about the genre. Also the main character’s psychological skills were interesting and he felt like a man who knows about behaviour.

When the movie adaption of The Book Thief came out in late 2013 (April of 2014 in Finland) I heard about this book for the first time and developed an interest for it. I didn’t go see the movie as I thought I’d rather read the novel first, but as a huge procrastinator I am, it took me about a year to finally grab the book and start reading. Even though this time it took me longer to read a book than usual, I’m really glad I finished it.

The Book Thief is a 2005 novel written by Australian author Markus Zusak and it tells the story of young German girl named Liesel Meminger, who during the Second World War discovers the world of literature and reading. It is her passion for books during the time when everything is scarce that drives her into stealing.

One of the most interesting facts about the novel is that the narrator is not Liesel but the embodiment of death. This is fascinating because Death is both an omniscient and first-person narrator; he is a character in the story, but being an almost god-like being he knows what other people think – even though he at times claims not to understand humans.

The writing style is really unique and it took a while for it to get to me, but in the end I grew to like it. Especially in the beginning the extra spacing, short sentences and the stressing of seemingly unimportant things kind of ticked me off, but towards the end of the book, when things got really interesting, it was the dramatic feel of the text that kept me going and prompted me to read the last 100 pages at one go.

Another thing worth mentioning is Zusak’s brilliant use of adjectives and descriptive verbs. I discovered so many English words I had never seen before! The novel has a lot of detailed describing of how people and the surroundings look – it is something that I enjoy immensely, but I know that some people find it extremely boring.

One more unique thing in the novel are these little pieces of information Death gives to the reader. Sometimes they’re short poems, sometimes extra notes, sometimes questions for the reader to use their own brains. They’re really effective: they tell some important things and events very briefly but with style – you simply cannot miss those relevant pieces of the story.

In addition to Liesel, the girl whose parents have been sent to a concentration camp and whose brother died before her, other major characters are her poor foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubermann, a Jewish boxer Max Vandenburg hiding in the Hubermanns’ basement and Liesel’s eccentric best-friend Rudy Steiner.  They’re all wonderfully layered and well-written characters that you actually care about. I think I liked Hans the most. That gentle-hearted WWI veteran really got to me.

I’ve been interested in history, especially World War II, for as long as I can remember. But only every so often I come across any kind of story told from the German point of view. If you think you’ve seen enough ‘American heroes’ shooting at evil Nazis, The Book Thief is a fresh change. It is about normal civilians trying to survive through the war.

I’m not going to deny it – I’m really bad at understanding themes and ‘messages’ of books and films. I would have to read or watch them at least twice to comprehend even remotely what they’re really about. If I now try to think of some kind of interpretation of the novel’s message, the only thing I can come up with is that even though life is hard and unfair at times, you should always have hope and wish for the better, and always do what you think is right.

I do recommend The Book Thief if you’re even mildly interested in history or just love to read. It became one of my personal favourites and I will surely read it again in the future. I’m also incredibly happy that I haven’t seen the movie yet, because I still have something to look forward to. First times are always unique; you can’t experience anything just the same way twice.

“If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.” – Miles Halter, page 218

John Green has become a big sensation among youth. He’s #1 New York Times Bestselling Author at the moment. I have read his other books before but now I finally read his first young adult novel named Looking for Alaska. It’s published in March 2005 by Dutton Juvenille. It broke New York Times Bestseller list at number 10 in Children’s Paperback, more than 7 years after it was released. John Green is also known about the novel The Fault in Our Stars. I believe especially many girls and young women know at least the movie (2014) about that book.

This book tells a story about a boy named Miles Halter and a girl named Alaska Young. They meet in a Culver Creek Boarding School in Alabama. Miles (called as ”Pudge”) is there for his junior year. It feels like everybody there has some talent and Pudge’s is that he remembers famous people’s last words. That’s kinda weird but interesting. The main point in the book is Pudge’s feelings for Alaska. I think this is a book (like John Green’s other books) which you can’t find similar one. This isn’t basic high school love story as others. This was more thought-provoking.

There are three main characters in this novel. Firstly there’s Miles Halter, who’s tall and skinny boy and who’s really attracted to Alaska. He’s a smart and kind boy who during his boarding school time decides to test his limits. The second main character is Alaska who’s really pretty, clever, wild and enigmatic. She acts so confident and independent girl who has many friends and a boyfriend but something clearly bothers her. She doesn’t like to be at home on holidays for example. She also deals cigarettes and alcohol to her friends. The third main character is Alaska’s best friend and Mile’s roommate Chip Martin. He comes from poor family and seems to hate rich kids. He has came to Boarding School with a scholarship. He’s the one who gives the possibility for Pudge to meet Alaska and leads Pudge to start smoking. Other characters are gifted MC/ Hip Hop aficianado Takumi (Alaska and Chip’s good friend), Alaska’s Romanian immigrant friend Lara, Mr. Starnes (also known as ”The Eagle”, the Stern Dean of Students at Culver Creek) and Jake (Alaska’s boyfriend who lives far away from her). I think John Green’s all characters are some way different than many other author’s. They are so special and out of the ordinary style. They are just normal people with their problems and they seem so realistic. Just like they could be existing in real life. They are sometime unexpected and not boring at all. The characters have also some intelligent proverbs and they made me think many things during the book.

The book is all about relationships and relationship’s problems. I knew that something will happen because the book is divided two sides: Before and After. I had feeling what could happen already before I even read the book and when I was reading before- pages there were quite clear signs about a death. The death was again present like it was in the story of The Fault in Our Stars. Alaska dies in a car accident. But her death is unclear: was it a suicide or an accident. Only reading this book can clarify this or not. Maybe you don’t always even need a clear answer. Life goes on.

The story is told from Pudge’s perspective. It’s full of his thoughts. He’s actually quite funny and I think many people can identify with him. He’s just a normal teenage with a willing heart and normal teenage problems. He’s fighting against tempations and his feelings. I laughed during this book because some thoughts fitted perfectly with mine. John Green just has such amazing aforisms.

I loved that book. Some people have criticized it because of it’s dirty language and bad things like drinking alcohol and smoking. But John Green himself has said: “There are some adults who think that the only kind of ethics that matter are sexuel ethics. So they miss everything else that is going on in the book.” He also said: “The book has never been marketed to 12-year-olds. Never. It is packaged like an adult book; it doesn’s even say it’s published by a kid’s book imprint on the cover, and it’s never shelved in the children’s section of bookstores.” It’s true that you must be older than 12-year old that you can understand the book right. You have to be openminded too, not so old-fashioned. John Green seems to be really genius and great person and it shows in his books. He has his own humour in them and it showed in this one too. He can make books about touching and serious things but still at the same time they are really funny and easy to read. I think that’s really great and refreshing. John Green himself, for instance, loves people’s last words so it wasn’t hard for him to find these to this book. He said too that he would have wanted more these words in the book but he couldn’t. Anyway this is a great book with a great message. It has a great mysterious spirit and it was so compelling that I read it really fastly. I can recommend it with my all heart to young who love novels which tell a story about teenagers and which are something more than just a cliché love story. This is also perfect for them who like John Green’s writing style (which is in my opinion really easy to read in English). If you have liked John Green’s other books, this book won’t let you down. The plot is magnificent.

Sources: Wikipedia

I read John Green’s book Looking for Alaska which was published in 2005. It is Green’s  first young adults novel. John Green has also written The fault in our stars (2012) which was made into a movie that released in 2014 and became widly popular. John Green also has few other books like the Abudance of Katherine.

This book is a story about love in all it’s forms. It a story about love between a boy and a girl, between friends and person’s love towards life.  It’s a young adults novel and in it’s own way it breaks the form that we’ve been used to in these kinds of novel. On the other hand it fit’s the form really well. It takes up the questions that many young adult thinks, such as does that other person like me or  what is the purpose of living here on earth. It’s also good story about friendship and loyalty and helping one in need. I’ve read Green’s other novel The fault in our starts and this novel has some similarities with it. One of those similarities is that someone dies in the book and someone is desperately in love with that person.

One of the main character in this book are Miles Halter who changes school from Florida to Culver Greek in Alabama. There he meets his roommate whose nickname is Chip and everyone calls him that. He loves to prank everyone and has a little rough background considering her mom living in a trailer and trying to pay his school bills. In Culver Greek there is this beautiful girl called Alaska and she is Chip’s friend and after a while Miles’ friend too. One of the last main characters is Takumi who is this Asian kid with crazy skills with hiphop and rhyming. Miles fells in love with Alaska even when she has a boyfriend out of town and he has a girlfriend at campus.  Even with all that drama all of them are good friends with each other and they always have something going on. Everyone of them represent some kind of stereotype of young adult. So I think that everyone finds something to identify oneself with.

The book’s languange was really easy to read and i didn’t have any trouble at all with it. One interesting fact was that there was a count down before the big breaking point of the book. It was plased in the beginning of every chapter so every chapter was named either days before or days after, like exemple: Eighty-nine Days Before or Seven Days After. In this book there is a lot of people’s last words because Miles hobby was to learn them. There is also some fragments from some books and poems. There isn’t that much of sayings or anything like that.

For me the reading experience was over all good even though there were some things that really annoyed me. Miles had this attitude that no one else can love nor miss Alaska execpt for him even though everyone else of her friends had same rights as him. Also there was something about Alaska that I really didn’t like, like exemple she was kinda leading Miles on thinking that she had feelings to him eventhough she said she loved her boyfriend more than anything else in this world. The story it self was good but it was a little bit predictable. For me reading an English novel was no new experience so in that way there were no new feelings involved.

Revenge Wear Prada has been written by Lauren Weisberger. Book has published in 2013. Wesberger has born in 1977, so she is 38-years-old. She is also written three other novels, Everyone Worth Knowing, Chasing Harry Winston and The Devil Wears Prada. The Devil Wears Prada is first book of her and this Revenge Wears Prada is sequel. The Devil Wears Prada is also a movie. This book spent a year on the New York Times bestseller list.

I hadn’t any idea what is the genre of this book but I found out that it belogns in genre: Chick lit. It means that a book is telling a story of young, adult woman who has career with fashion or public relations. Usually she’s single and genre tells her life with humor. The gene were originated from Briget Jones. This books fits perfectly in to the genre of chick lit. Young woman running her own magazine. She is jut getting married but then everything changes. Problems begins. First part, The Devil Wears Prada belongs also in chick lit. It is very similiar with this one.

The main caracters is Andrea Sachs, better known as Andy, her previous enemy in nowadays best friend Emily and her future husband Max. Andy and Emily is running together Andy’s magzine. The devil herself, Miranda is editorial director of Elias-Clark where Andrea and Emily used to work, but from the beginning to the end she is not the main caracter. While talking about stereotypes this is all it. Miranda, ”The Devil”, is very cold hearted woman who is running renowned magazine and has a expencive home on an expencive area but have no husband. Andrea used to be a nerd but Miranda made her transformation and all of the sudden she became a bitch. Miranda’s  ex-assistant Emily in nowadays Andy’s best friend were ”the main bitch” who made Andrea run place to another. She was cruel but then se broke down and Andrea helped her.

I try to keep summary of plot short. Andrea is running own magazine with her bestfriend Emily. She is getting married with her man Max, but she finds out that Max has screwd up everything on his bachelor party. Then the devil, Miranda, steps in to the story. Everything starts to fall a pieces. No wedding, no best friend, no trust and in the end… no magazine.

The language of the book is very clear and easy to read. There is no swearing, but it is really how can I say.. ”Fashionable”. Because the book is telling about just that dream. New York, fashion magazine, enemies, perfect husband. You know? There is also omniscient narrator.

I liked this book very much. It was quite funny but still so rough. Everything is not how you think it is. I prefere to read this book. It gives you a functional thought of supposedly life in New York.