Category Archives: Novels

I read the book Forrest Gump, which was  interesting story about man who is idiot but who always is trying to do what’s best. His life wasn’t easy, he was in normal school where people bullied him but there was a girl called Jenny who liked Forrest. Soon Forrest was moved to the idiot school and he couldn’t see Jenny anymore. People suddenly noticed how fast Forrest runs so he got place in university’s football team. After this Forrest goes to army and got new friend called Bubba and they talk about shrimp business. Forrest’s squad was sent to Vietnam where they got attacked by enemies and Forrest saves some of them but his friend Bubba got shot in the head and died. When Forrest got back to USA he was awarded by medal of honor and President gave it to him. Then Forrest accepted NASA’s mission to go space with another person and monkey called Sue but after coming back they crashed to jungle somewhere in South America. NASA found them four years later and Sue was Forrest’s new best friend. Forrest became chess champion and wrestler too and in the end of the book he meets Jenny and his own child called Forrest and starts the shrimp business and gives the earned money to Bubba’s family.

Book was good and little different than the movie. Forrest was the narrator and the language of the book wasn’t hard to understand.

John Green´s sixth novel ”The Fault in Our Stars” is his careers best known published book and it has become a worldwide phenomenon. The reason to its popularity is mainly the movie based to this book. The book was published in 2012 and the movie came to theaters few years later.

Theme of this novel is romantic drama. Green has written a beautiful and quite unusual love story which includes fight against cancer. Focus of this book is in love and it´s power. “The Fault in Our Stars” is unique and touching story.

16-year-old girl Hazel Grace Lancaster suffers from lung cancer and she meets finally cancer free Augustus in supporting group for cancer teens. The couple fell in love but Hazel wanted to minimize the victims of his own death but in the end she can´t help falling in love with Augustus. It was nice to read how close they became so in the short time and many things connect them together. Also Hazel´s parents are in big role by effecting on Hazels hobbies (forcing to go to support group). Main characters are Hazel and Augustus. They also have a common friend called Isac, whom also has cancer. Novel ends surprisingly and that´s also a good reason to it´s poignancy.

Characters aren´t stereotypical and that´s why I had new perspective on people with cancer.

My favorite part of the book was the last few pages because it showed how strong girl Hazel really is.

The book was like some kind of emotional roller coaster. Sometimes I laughed and little later I cried but sometimes I was feeling both of these emotions at the same time and it felt weird. When the moment was sad but these two lovers talked to each other so sensitively and with just right words. All the time it was nice to read ahead and keep on track just to see what will happen next.
I really enjoyed the language of the book and those little extra comments the narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster was making, because they made her attitude really show up. Sometimes she was sarcastic and sometimes serious but I always understood her point. “Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really)”, this is a good example of Green´s narrative and it appeals to almost every youngster. Hazel is telling the story from her own perspective.

This book was really easy to read – maybe because I had seen the film too – actually there was hardly any words I didn´t understand and context helped me too. I actually made a too easy decision by reading this book because while I was reading, I could “see the movie again” because there hasn´t been made much changings on details in movie.

Augustus and Hazel experienced hard but wonderful times together and hopefully the story teaches the reader something about love and that makes this book worth reading and movie worth watching.

A Thousand Splendid Suns is a book written by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini. His first novel ”The Kite Runner” was a big success. A Thousand Splendid Suns is his second novel and it was published in 2007. It´s great, touching and heartbreaking story about two very different kind of woman, Laila and Mariam. Life in Afghanistan over the last decades has been a struggle especially for women. In Afghanistan has been waged wars for decades; The Soviet war lasted over nine years (1979-1989), after that three Civil wars including the time when the Taliban controlled most of the Afghanistan and since 2001 (after the September 11th attacks) ISAF and NATO has been involvement the war in Afghanistan. All these wars are clearly on display in the novel so it increased my knowledge of history in Afghanistan.

Thera are two protagonist in this novel, Mariam and Laila. Mariam was born in 1958 as an illegitimate, unwanted child. She is uneducated and she lives with her mother in a small cottage the first fifteen years of her life. Then her mother dies and she is forced to marry a middle-aged shoemaker Rasheed. They move in Kabul which is the capital of Afghanistan. Mariam´s life is very hard including many miscarriages and cruel, violent husband. The other protagonist Laila was born in 1978 to an intelligence family. Laila´s father was a teacher in the university before the Soviets forced him to leave his job. Laila´s childhood is very different compared to Mariam´s. Laila goes to school and has many good friends. Her best friend is Tariq, a boy who lost his leg to a landmine at the age of five. Laila´s carefree life ends when she is 14. Then Mariam´s and Laila´s lives are conneced in an unexpected way after a rocket kills Laila´s parents. Laila has no other choice than marry Rasheed. At first Mariam can´t stand that Rasheed took a second wife but little by little she and Laila become friends. Laila and her daughter Aziza give much joy to Mariam´s miserable life.

I liked Khaled Hosseini´s writing style very much. The language is beautiful and there are a few surprising plot twists. The characterisation of the protagonists is skilled. While he is telling Mariam´s and Laila´s story, he is also telling about Afghanistan´s history, culture and the status of women. Especially when the Taliban is controlling Afghanistan, being a woman is extremely hard. It´s out of my comprehension how women are treated; they must stay inside homes all the time and they will be beaten if they are walking alone in streets or laughing in public. Working and attending school is forbidden. It´s no wonder that things in Afghanistan are miserable when women, half of the nation are locked inside their houses. It is self-evident that without letting women participate in the society, the situation in Afghanistan isn´t getting any better.

In my opinion this book was great. A Thousand Splendid Suns deals with things like the war, child marriages and the poverty. The novel contains a love story and a beautiful tale of friendship. The deeper issue in the book is clearly the status of women in the Afghan society. The novel managed to evoke emotions and was interesting, touching and entertaining. The plot is very good and contains enough surprises. Some parts of the novel were hard to read. Rocket´s tearing children in pieces and Rasheed´s really violent behaviour brought tears to my eyes. If just reading things like that was hard to me, I can only imagine what people who have really suffered from the terrors of the war have felt.

A Game of Thrones is a high fantasy novel written by American author George R. R. Martin. It is originally published in 1996 and it is the first novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin is best known as the author of the series. He has planned to release seven volumes and two are still under way. A Game of Thrones has been also adapted into a very enjoyable TV series.

The story of A Game of Thrones takes place on two fictional regions called Westeros and Essos. The main idea in this book and in the whole series is that noble families fight for the Iron Throne in Westeros. The cold is returning and winter is coming to a land where summer can last decades. Lord Eddard Stark, Warden of the North, has been given the honor to serve as the king’s right hand by the King Robert himself. Lord counts it a curse. Various events and conflicts lead the Lannister family to rise to the throne. At the same time in the east the dragon prince of the former ruling family gathers an army to win back his throne and barters his sister in order to obtain it.

The plot follows various characters and their points of views. There is 3 major families in the book which the story follows the most of the time. The book is divided into chapters, each one focusing on different persons and their points of views. All of the characters don’t really know about each other, but they are creating story for reader on all sides of the fantasy world. However all of the events are connected in some way which makes the book really interesting.

The book is very descriptive and detailed, but still not difficult to read. There is many chapters which alternately focus on different persons and return to them again and again. Still the book could not be read and to be understood from the perspective of only one person even if tried to, because the events affect each other quite a lot. The book is really long, but feels really short when you get into it. This is a very good novel, full of twists and turns. It leaves you wanting more and move on to the next book in the series.

Paper Towns (2008) is wrote by John Green. John Green is an American author and Youtube video blogger. Green’s first novel was ”Looking for Alaska” and his most known novel is ”The Fault in Our Stars”, which also was released as a movie. Paper Towns is Green third novel it was published in 2008. Paper Town will be released as a movie in summer. The movie is directed by Jake Schreier.

Paper Towns main character is Quentin Jacobsen who goes senior year in high school and has a crush on Margo Spiegelman. Margo disappears just two weeks before a graduation day. Quentin starts to find out what happened to Margo and where she is. Quentin gets help from his friends and clues which Margo left behind.

When I started to read Paper Towns I thought it was going to be a regular love story where a boy and a girl will fall in love with each other but when Margo disappears the story turns to be mystery. The book’s plot is about Quentin trying to find Margo. To find her, Quentin has to think and act like Margo. At some point Quentin comes quite obsessed about finding Margo and he does nothing else, for instance when Quentin’s friends are going to senior prom Quentin doesn’t go because he tries to sleep in a abandoned bulidning where Margo had slept. First Margo seems quite frivolous but when Quentin finds the clues he finds out that Margo also has some deep thoughts. When the plot goes forward a reader can notice that Margo wasn’t same what se was in the beginning of the book.

I never had read John Green before because I thought all his books are sad like The Fault in Our Stars. But I was positively surprised even though at some point the book felt quite boring because Quentin was trying to figure out a same clue all the time. I really liked this book andI I think I will read more John Green’s books.

Sources: Wikipedia and IMDb