Monthly Archives: maaliskuu 2015

John Steinbeck, an author who has won a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, wrote the short novel in 1937. Of Mice and Men has become one of the American classics. Plays and films have been made based on this novel. I became interested in reading Of Mice and Men after I watched the 1992 film directed by Gary Sinise. In his books, Steinbeck used to describe how it was like during the Great Depression in the 1930s. His stories normally told about the poor working class. Another well-known novel written by him is The Grapes of Wrath, which was published in 1939.

Of Mice and Men locates in California during the 1930s. The novella is a realistic description of migrant workers, who didn’t have homes and worked in ranches to earn money. Of Mice and Men deals with important themes such as friendship, trust, and loneliness. A big theme in the book is mental retardation and being different from others. The book also describes how people’s behavior changes depending on which people are around.

The two protagonists are named George and Lennie. George is a smart guy who doesn’t have big expectations for future. His goal is to have a regular job and a place to sleep. George takes care of mentally retarded Lennie. Together they move from a ranch to another looking for work. Lennie acts like a small child and his favorite thing in the whole world is touching soft things. Physically Lennie is stronger than average which makes him a good worker. However, he has problems with controlling his powers. Of Mice and Men tells how these men start working at a new ranch and what happens there.

The story is told by an omniscient narrator. Once in a while the language of the book was a bit challenging. I had to read out loud some of the men’s replies to understand what they meant. The men swore a lot and used some not-so-beautiful expressions for example about an African-American man, Croocks, who worked in the horse stable. However, these things made the story more realistic in my eyes. I think you can read some things between the lines when you’re focusing on the language of the book. ”George, how long’s it gonna be till we get that little place an’ live fatta the lan’ –an’ rabbits?” said on page 56 is a good example of Lennie’s replies. Personally, I most enjoyed Lennie’s childish way to speak.

Of Mice and Men shows how it is to be lonely and different. Lennie gets misunderstood and discriminated by other men because of things he isn’t able to chance. The same thing happens with Croocks. These two men seem to have many things in common. The only woman in the book also gets mocked quite often. She doesn’t get viewed as a person, but more as an annoying and good-looking wife of the boss’ son.

Another theme is friendship. The story tells about being a friend and how hard it can be. Steinbeck realistically pictures the friendship of the protagonists. George probably didn’t choose to start taking care of Lennie. He just knows that he can’t leave Lennie because he wouldn’t survive alone. Still, I’m not saying that George was always a good friend to Lennie. He often lost his patience and made Lennie feel bad about himself. Not to mention what happened at the end of the story. Of Mice and Men successfully tells the situation from Lennie’s point of view too. He truly wants to do the right thing but when he fails, he becomes scared of George being mad at him.

I haven’t read many English books, so this was a nice experience. For me, Of Mice and Men was an unusually short book. I am used to reading novels with more complicated plots and that’s why I didn’t get the idea of this one at first. After I had read more, I realized that maybe the plots of John Steinbeck’s books aren’t the reason why he is so appreciated. Steinbeck was extremely good at writing about those unfair and embarrassing things which belonged to peoples’ normal life.

What I liked was that Steinbeck didn’t create any unimportant characters or plot twists. Of Mice and Men may be a short story but it still manages to say all the necessary things. In this story the plot is not as important as the message. The book has a lot to say.

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Mice_and_Men, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Steinbeck,

Switched was originally first published as an e-book in 2010 by a young American writer, Amanda Hocking. Hocking first started as a group home worker, until 2010, when she wrote a whopping 17 novels in her free time. During the spring of 2010, she started to publish her books as e-books. And by 2011, she had sold over a million copies of her nine books and earned over two million dollars from sales. In March 2011, Hocking signed her very first book publishing contract with St. Martin’s Press. The contract included the publishing of her four books, three of which were apart of the Trylle series, which was re-released in January-April 2012. All of Hocking’s books are young adult fiction and they focus on paranormal romance. Also in February 2011, the Trylle series (thank goodness, I am so hyped for this!) was optioned for a film, with Terra Tatchell taking care of the screenplay.

Okay, so now let’s start with the book itself. I accidentally first picked out the second part of the series from the library and had to wait months to get my hands on the first part. And let me tell you, it was worth it! Switched got me hooked during the very first chapter and I just had to keep on reading and reading.
The book begins with the main character of the whole series, Wendy Everly, describing an awful incident that took place 11 years ago. Her mother, Kim, started accusing the 6-year old Wendy of being a monster and taking away her child. Things get out of hand, and Kim tries to kill Wendy, but only manages to cause a severe injury on her stomach. Ever since Kim got the newborn in her arms, she knew that this was not her child.
”I was pregnant, Wendy! But you’re not the child I gave birth to! Where is my child?” Tears formed in her eyes and I shook my head. ”You probably killed him, didn’t you?

Kim gets transported to a psychiatric hospital and Wendy is left with her aunt Maggie and  her big brother, Matt. Both of them are ready to do whatever it takes to make Wendy’s life wonderful because of her awful childhood. Wendy and her small little family move to a new house, meaning that Wendy is switching schools, again. Wendy wasn’t really the best student, to me she seemed like one of those people who just sit in class and don’t pay attention and just want to go home. One day Wendy notices that a newcomer, Finn, can’t keep his eyes off of her, which first comes out rather creepy. At the school dance, Finn asks Wendy to dance with him. The dancing goes well, until Finn starts to insult Wendy, and she gets pissed. She manages to get a guy to take her home by using a secret ability she has no idea of.
I clenched my fists and looked Patrick directly in his eyes. I didn’t like doing this when people watched, but I had to get out of here. I kept chanting what I wanted over and over in my head.
After the little scene at the dance, Finn mysteriously shows up outside of Wendy’s bedroom window, wanting to tell her about things that will truly turn her life upside down.

I was going to go further with the plot, but I don’t want to ruin it for people who probably haven’t read the book, yet.
Okay, so like I said before, the main character of the story is Wendy Everly, a 17-year-old young high schooler who has had a tough childhood. To me, Wendy really seemed like a self-centered, short-tempered person, but she is also very kind to the people she loves. As the story goes on, the way she acts totally changes and she turns into a whole new person. Aunt Maggie, who after the horrible incident became Wendy’s guardian, is a loving person and really cares for her niece. Sadly, you don’t get to hear much about Maggie because she kind of gets ”forgotten” mid-way through the book. Wendy’s loving big brother is the kind that I’m sure everyone would want. Matt is really caring and protective of his sister and would definitely take a bullet for her. Finn, the mysterious newcomer, is a really interesting person. He is really hard to describe, but it seems like he has this huge wall built around him and won’t let his emotions get through it. On the inside, he’s a really caring and loving person, who wants for other people to be happy. He doesn’t care if it’ll make him feel miserable, as long as you’re happy, he’s happy.

The places where the story takes place, are described wonderfully, and you can just imagine that you’re actually there, with the characters. There’s a lot of details, and the way the characters are acting and feeling can also be seen quite well. It’s like you could see what’s going through their minds and know what they’re truly thinking of.
The story has some kind of a love triangle that’s slowly developing, but it can be seen better in the two other books.

I truly enjoyed the book, I’d talk about it non-stop and everything was just so.. lovely. The whole series just takes your breath away and the plot is filled with unexpected twists etc. I would recommend this book to everyone, who loves a little bit of action and fantasy in their books. I have no clue if this book has been published in Finnish, but I recommend reading it in English because usually details and everything are described better in the original language, rather than the translated one. And how did it feel to read an English novel? Well, in English, you can describe things way better because you can use multiple words to describe just one small thing, when in Finnish, that’s not the case. This was the  very first English novel I’ve read fully, and it for sure won’t be my last. Anyway, I’m sure people who have read books such as the Hunger Games, Twilight etc. would enjoy many of Amanda Hocking’s books.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Hocking, www.bookchickcity.com/2012/07/review-switched-by-amanda-hocking.html

Jurassic park written by Michael Crichton. First published in Great Britain in 1991 by the Random Century Group. Michael Crichton wrote 17 books and directed many movies. He died to throat cancer in 2008.

The book is mix of thriller and scifi story. It was made into a very exciting film in 1993 by Steven Spielberg.

Main characters of the book are Alan Grant, Ellie Sattler, Ian Malcom, Donald Gennaro, John Hammond and Tim and Lex Murphy. Other characters are Bob Morris, Dennis Nedry, Ed Regis, John Arnold, Robert Muldoon, Henry Wu and Dr Harding. They all are linked to each other because John Hammond invited everyone of them to visit the island. Alan and Ellie are investigating together history of the earth and plants.

Plot of the story centralizes on the island John Hammond has turned into Jurassic Park. He invites different kind of experts from different kind of professions to investigate the island and to make sure it’s safe to open to public. Everything seems to be fine until something sudden happens.

Story is told by omniscient narrator. Language of the book isn’t very hard and the back of the book contains explanations for difficult words so it’s easy to check if some word is difficult or challenging.

What I think about this book? I think that the book was very interesting since there was so much hype when the movies came and I hadn’t seen them. Book was rather short but I didn’t think it was a problem. There were pictures that clarified what happened in the text which was very good idea. And the explanations that were behind the book were very useful given the fact that I didn’t need them very much. But to someone who is poor in English it’s very good thing. Reading an English novel was pretty fun. It was different from reading a Finnish novel. But in a good way.

Titanic – Death on the Water, published in 2012, is a novel written by Tony Bradman and his son Tom Bradman. It’s a blend of fiction and fact about the sinking of the world-famous, “unsinkable” ship, Titanic. The main character Billy Fleming is fictional but the book is based on facts, so Billy and the story of him could have been real.

Billy is a 14-year-old Irish boy whose father, “Da”, has worked in the shipyard building the hull of Titanic. Billy is expected to follow in his Da’s footsteps, especially after the death of his Da. He’s scared but he decides to leave school and do what he’s expected to – start working on the shipyard for the wage that his family desperately needs for living. As it happens, they’re looking for bellboys to work on Titanic – that’s when Billy nerves himself and takes the job. So the adventure begins.

The story of Titanic is well-known by everyone, so it’s not hard for readers to guess what’s going to happen when Billy starts his job on the ship. Before reading the book, the only question you don’t have an answer to is whether Billy is going to survive or not. When I first started reading Death on the Water, getting that answer was the only thing I was looking for. But as the story went on, it swept me away with it’s realistic narration and it started to feel like I was on board myself with the characters – and the question, whether Billy will stay alive or not, wasn’t the only thing in my mind anymore.

Titanic – Death on the Water gave me a whole new point of view on the story of Titanic. As most of us, I had only seen the 1997 movie of Titanic and it had left me a certain image of the ship and what happened on it. This book, however, told the story from a point of view of a 14-year-old bellboy who wasn’t ready to face that kind of disaster, far away from home and with no one to rely on. It was eye-opening to think about the sinking from a different point of view than I, and most of us, had been used to.

The narration of the book was really gripping and its language was easy to understand. The book is only 130 pages so it doesn’t take long to read it – but in spite of the shortness of the story, it still makes an impression on the reader.