Melissa Alvarez | Earth Stream

11/5/14

No one really knew about the Swat Valley district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan, and no one really knew that the Taliban were occupying this Pakistani Province, or the type of limits and restraints the women were being forced to live by. No one really ever knows about what’s really happening worldwide unless it’s in front of their own eyes. In front of 15 year old Malala Yousafzai’s eyes before everything changed in her life, was a gun at point-blank range and the sound of a bullet ringing through her ears.

In the year 2009, 11 year old Malala Yousafzai wrote a blog for BBC originally under a pseudonym, about what her life was like under the occupation of the Taliban in her home town of Mingora. The Taliban restricted girls from being able to attend school and receive a quality education (let alone any education), and if disobeyed, they would more than likely be facing death. Malala wrote all about how she believes everyone deserves equal rights to an education. She began giving interviews, appearing on TV, speaking with her father at events, taking part in a documentary for the New York Times. She slowly but surely became popularized from the outside, which posed a threat to the Taliban that a teenage girl was speaking out against them. On the afternoon of October 9th, 2012, the Taliban boarded the school bus Malala was taking, and shot her in the head while injuring two others. Yousafzai’s incredible recovery has only achieved the opposite of the Taliban’s hopes. Malala is now the youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient in history for her bravery and activism, and she continues to speak at major events (the United Nations, the Liberty Medal award ceremony, the Forbe’s Best Inventors Under 30, etc.), and continues to spread her cause globally.

The book “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education and Was Shot by the Taliban” leaves you wondering about what’s next on Malala’s list of remarkable experiences. She writes all about the love and melancholy she feels by having to be separated from her home in Pakistan. Readers are taken back to the short amount of time Malala spent as an adolescent, with her childhood stories and observations she made about her family early on. She writes about how and why her father was such an inspiration and motivator to her when she needed it, and how he’s been there every step of the way with her. The descriptiveness throughout the entire book gives the audience a very vivid and surreal experience, almost as if these are our memories and not hers. From the very beginning of the book, any reader is caught and fished in as Malala leaves them wanting more. From the very beginning, the story line cuts right to the chase down to the moment they pulled the trigger to her head. You won’t be able to put it down.

Some major themes recognized in this book are survival, family, the right to an education, and the definition of beauty. Malala has overcome and written not only about hardships she’s experienced personally, but the hardships her mother has also experienced, and the women before her. It is not uncommon in her Valley for women to give up their rights just to stay home, cook, clean, and raise sons. It is what they’ve been programmed to do by their ancestors, but it is something Malala has refused to do with the help and guidance of her father. Throughout this tale, you will also pick up on a little bit of ‘Pashto’ as Malala refers to certain things with certain titles from her native language (with an english translation accompanied). You will learn more about family than ever before, and the power of what the support from the right people can help you to accomplish. Also from this book will be a strong reminder about home and what it means to have a place you come from and find to be beautiful in every way that is your own; Be it the bustling city streets of New York, to the beautiful silence of the Mingora mountains, we each have some place to call home and will remember to love after finishing this book.

Malala to me almost represents a real-life Katniss Everdeen. She is very much the survivor, the motivator, the one who never loses sight of her beliefs, and the one who stood out. If you are interested to hear a very visual tale of survival, near death experiences, and a personal comeback into a new and more powerful life that the author is still adjusting to, this book is very highly recommended.

Title: I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up For Education and Was Shot by the Taliban

Author: Malala Yousafzai with Christina Lamb

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Date of Publication: November 26th, 2013

Pages: 464

Genre: Non-Fiction

Link to creative piece:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrACYiz5QUE

Reviewer: Nicholas LePera

“From his bedroom window Mikhail Zinoviev could see that the barn door was open. It was swaying backwards and forwards into the wind and snow was swirling into the barn”, the vivid description and imagery of Child 44.  The novel was written by Tom Rob Smith, and the book is outstanding, considering it is his first.  The mere thought of future books written by such a talented person is intriguing. Child 44 is followed by two others, The Secret Speech, and Agent 6. His first book, Child 44, was so well received that it is expected to receive a film adaptation. Get ready to see it hit the big screen! This book is not for the faint-of-heart. The harsh Russian winter is as unforgiving as its people. Murder, rape, and alcoholism has its members and you may not take kindly to sexual themes.

The thriller Child 44 takes place in the midst of post World War II in Soviet Russia. From reading history books, I went into this book knowing Stalin was a mad-man responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people. He was responsible for the harsh and villainous tactics used by the secret police. Extortion, murder, torture, and more. This knowledge gave me a fear when reading that something unexpected could happen to my favourite characters due to the type of world they live in.  During such an eventful point in time is why this story flourishes. The time and place of all events created by Tom Rob Smith accurately correlate with the methods of the secret police and the propaganda used by the State to coerce people to following a maniac’s goal.  Agents huddled around the radiator of their GAZ automobile struggling to stay warm as they progress towards a farm they plan to raid has a militaristic feel to it that made me feel the brotherly feel among the crowd but also the connection to the dark deeds these men have done.  From Moscow, to Rostov, circumstances change, not all fear is the same and characters fit the living environment they are in through their dialogue to their actions.

In the boots of lead character, Leo Demidov is an MGB agent, also known as the secret police, which is responsible for carrying out Stalin’s orders. As the reader is introduced to Leo, they will find out his past is not exactly as obvious as one might hope.  His job was to blame crimes upon people who had done nothing.  Falsely placing claims and torturing confessions are the specialty of men such as Leo. The victims, taken from their rooms in the night, all traces of them gone. Nobody bats an eyelash, for if they do, they may be next. These are historical events that tie in with Tom Rob Smith’s main character, Leo who has put all of his faith in the state and lives to serve loyally. His loyalty stretches back as far to the time of being a soldier in the Red Army, it would only make sense for Leo to join the Ministry of State Security  One day events begin to take place which make their way to Leo’s attention causing him to challenge his belief in the state. He is married to a teacher named Raisa, though the marriage isn’t exactly working out. Though he cannot realize why, state deception has cast his mind away from his eyes so he cannot realize what he is doing.  Smith ties in the feeling of the harsh Russian environment through immersing the reader in its weather, but also in its appearance as a Communist nation ruled by fear. You will breathe and feel every city block, every farm, and path traveled by Leo.  From the streets of the Lubyanka to the slums of Rostov-on-don, Smith provides the reader a complete Russian geographic. As more and more events spawn onto the drawing table, Leo becomes baffled. Everything he has been taught and has believed is being disproved in a matter of days. I felt attached, as if I had been in his shoes and I was there for the battle to make a decision on what to do next. Struggling to figure out the truth, he begins to investigate these mysterious murders. We as readers are brought along in the journey, ever present yet ever distant to the story we are enveloped by.

The people he originally arrested had no correlation to these events. Leo knows this for a fact, but is hesitant to disobey the all-knowing state. Each murdered child he has come across has had the same exact autopsy report on how they were killed, surely this was no coincidence. Amongst the chaos, the protagonist is tested by the state. His rivals have given him a test, denounce his wife as a spy. For days Leo debates on the possibilities. Is his lover a spy for the West? He finds himself on the streets with his wife, Raisa, banished from Moscow.

Having been demoted for failing to denounce his wife, the couple finds themselves on their own and Leo at a disadvantage in solving the mystery at large, the murderer. He must conduct his operations in secret and find a way to bring the madman responsible to justice.  The reader may attempt to read this book and infer possible outcomes and scenarios by judging the book in comparison to other shows and books, but each one shall fail.

Within the pages of this book are vast amounts of mysteries and details making it impossible for you to draw conclusions but yet remain entertained. With countless history books, texts, and documentaries, Smith created the most historically accurate fiction of all time.

Searching for answers to his question, Leo will meet new people. What fate will he face in the harsh and barren cold of such an unforgiving land? Leo must redeem himself, for his wife, Raisa. Living a life of lies only makes it harder to search for the truth.

Book: Child 44        Author: Tom Rob Smith        Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

  Date Published: 2008        Pages: 400          Genre: Thriller         Language: English  

To understand the book Little Brother, one must first understand Cory Doctorow. Doctorow is a member of a group of minds who are of the opinion that all digital media should be shareable. He is against copyrighting, and most of his works are viewable for free online under creative commons licensing. Doctorow believes the creators of the media should have the copyright, and that said media should be free to be used as the creator pleases. These ideas come out strongly in Little Brother.

Little Brother is the story of Marcus, a teenager/gamer/self-made genius. He and his group of friends start out innocent enough, skipping school to play a game. But when a bomb goes off in San Francisco, their homeland, they become captured by Homeland Security. From there, the story becomes a technology driven war of attrition between Marcus’s fellow teens and the government. It is a compelling and terrifying look at what could happen as the United States government goes to extremes to neutralize an internal threat.

This novel is thrilling, full of the choking thought of having your worst enemy be the group you are supposed to trust. There are many points in the early stages of the novel that make you feel the setting well. You are constantly put into situations where it feels like you, not the character, lose people or feel hopelessly lost yourself. The setting, when it isn’t on the internet or main characters’ houses, can give off a very real, close feeling. You also are given enough insight into the characters to start to feel for them, especially during the early parts of the narrative. The most realistic feeling in I felt during this narrative was a growing, infectious paranoia. I truly began to fear the walls themselves, wondering what kind of people my government’s employees really were. Which departments I could trust? Which would readily take me away to control the people around me? The story does a remarkable job turning those we have learned to trust so deeply into the bad guy.

The “trust nobody” feeling of Little Brother is what kept me into it. Cory Doctorow’s writing is at first appealing and witty, but falls short and becomes repetitive uncomfortably quickly. His style feels like an attempt at comedy, and his language is so lighthearted that I almost lose track of the serious tone that the characters situation calls for. The laughs fall too short to actually call this book a comedy. Some people refer to Doctorow’s writing as glorified blogging. The masses are correct. The novel’s focus is lacking. Doctorow fills space that could be used to write a compact, concise story with descriptions of concepts and terms that he uses in the book. This may be an attempt at pushing into the first person point of view as fully as possible, as Marcus is the kind of kid who loves to teach himself as much as he can get his hands on, but it comes off as a drag on the reader. The book is constantly sidetracked by descriptions of random things Marcus knows that range from a paragraph to, several occassions, a full page.

The language posed another issue to me. It felt like Doctorow was trying too hard to play the part of a hot headed young teen. The sound of the book felt unnatural. It felt like someone who was trying to play the character of a teenager, but a forced, stereotypical teenager. For most of the book, I wanted Marcus to stop talking, and for a third person narrator to take over. You could never get behind Marcus on an emotional level. He had four modes: Doctorow fueled blog-like rants on minor things; angry, brooding, authority hating; perverted, unrealistic teenager; and whiny, scared, forced into the spotlight mode. None of these felt like a real human. It is difficult to read a first person novel when you can’t support the protagonist.

Little Brother isn’t a bad book, it just fell short on the expectations that I went into it with. There are plenty of readers who will enjoy it. Anyone who is entertained by the popular young adult novels such as the Hunger Games series and Divergent will be able to find a familiar style of writing and plot structure. Little Brother is also a good entry point for the young to introduce themselves into the cyberpunk and dystopian genres. It is the inflatable kiddie pool of cyberpunk. Any young readers interested in some light, reality grounded science fiction should take some time to read Little Brother.

Little Brother

Cory Doctorow

Self Published via Creative Commons

Published 2007

139 pages

Young Adult Cyberpunk, Light Scifi, Thriller

Digital Fortress — Dan Brown

Review by Zack Hersh

Snowden on steroids — Digital Fortress is an exciting and wild ride through the NSA and the controversial issues of privacy, but past the plotline, the writing falls short

“Who will guard the guards?” The premise of this book is interesting enough: the National Security Agency’s top code breaking machine, the massive and multimillion dollar TRANSLTR, encounters a code it cannot break, called Digital Fortress. It turns out that Digital Fortress is actually unbreakable encryption software that, if released to the public, would be able to encode any digital message or data, effectively protecting it from any unwelcome “snooping” done by say the NSA. This software was created by a former NSA employee, Ensei Tankado, who was outraged by what he thought to be corruption, injustice and abuse of power in the NSA. More specifically, their everyday intrusion into people’s private lives. At the threat of releasing this software to the world, which would cripple NSA intelligence and power devastatingly, and the fact that the code is already inside TRANSLTR, preventing the mighty machine from doing anything else until the code is broken, Digital Fortress essentially holds the NSA hostage.

Only the secret passkey can abort the code, and that is where Susan Fletcher, the main character, and her fiance David Becker come in. Susan is the NSA’s head cryptographer, or code maker and breaker, and is brought in to try to uncover the passkey in a race against time, before Tankado auctions it off to the highest bidder worldwide. At the same time, Becker is sent to Spain, where Tankado had just died of what appeared to be a heart attack, to try to find Tankado’s personal copy of the passkey, all while being persecuted by a mysterious and relentless assassin. For the sake of national intelligence, the passkey must be uncovered before it is too late.

By this point, it should be quite clear how interesting the plotline of the book is. It is twisted and dynamic, with many layers, sides, and surprising or big reveals. But the complex and captivating plot was basically all the book had going for it, and was the only thing that would keep readers. Past the story, the writing fell short. It was mostly hollow and not very sharp, only really descriptive of actions, meaning along the lines of “Then he did this. Then this person did this. Then this person did that”. Of what would be expected of a professional author, especially one as accomplished as Dan Brown, who has found success with other bestsellers like Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code, his prose is of egregiously low level. Much of the story was written in a very disappointing way. Then again, this was his debut work. He has since had time to figure some of these issues out.

Each chapter, the story jumped around from different places and characters, which was not only somewhat distracting and introduced numerous additional, and sometimes unnecessary, characters and subplots, but also caused the book to read more like a screenplay than a novel. With the exception of the intricate and well developed plotline, the writing was not of the highest caliber. For example, at a highly climactic scene, when Becker is running from the assassin and encounters a dead end, Brown Writes, “And then it just stopped. [Paragraph] Like a freeway that ran out of funding, the path ended.” This poorly executed simile was just one example of many literary letdowns found within the book’s 500 pages, and took away so much from this moment in the story. Readers may find themselves thinking more about the writing they’re reading instead of becoming immersed in the story, which is a shame, because the plot itself is quite rich. As the plot thickened, the writing did become somewhat more readable and engrossing, however, this high point is the baseline of quality where most writers would be looking to as a starting point, not as a peak. Readers who can ignore and look past errors, questionable decisions, and little irritations may enjoy the book because of the captivating story it tells, but otherwise, Digital Fortress would mostly likely not be a worthwhile read. Readers could instead discover the plot through Sparknotes, or through a simple plot summary.

The most complicated people in the world are the most interesting. At least it’s that way for Balram Halwai. The reader gets sucked into a story filled with love, murder, grief, and the struggle for power.

Balram Halwai was a simple man from a simple village named Laxmangarh. However, his life took a turn when his father died of Tuberculosis. This then caused the division of a family. Balram is offered a job to be the driver of the wealthiest family in his village then greed starts taking advantage of his family. He is soon split between money and family. A few months into his career as a driver Balram is afraid of the competition brought a driver that stayed with the family for a longer period of time. Balram does whatever it takes to be the better driver. His actions take him to a road he can’t seem to get off of. By accepting the job, Balram was exposed to parts of India he never knew existed. From brothels to temples, Balram gets the full Indian experience behind the wheels of an expensive car.

On the road to a new life, Balram picks up a few friends who also happen to be taxi drivers. They expose him to the ups and downs of being a driver in the most corrupt city (also most “American”) in India, New Delhi. Balram watches his friends drown themselves in alcohol and women. This piques his interest, seeing has he never “dipped his beak” into anyone and begins to explore his sexuality. He even watches his employers perform sexual acts in the back seat of his car! Balram is then shown how politics is actually ran by watching his employers bribing foreign ministers for tax breaks and steal from the poor. He also sees how easily modern marriages can crumble and how easily people can rebound.

As Balram is further developed in the book, he gains more wisdom. He steps back and sees India for what it really is, which lets him find a way outside of the “Rooster Coop” he believes Indian servants are in. This revelation allows him to siphon gas, work with corrupt mechanics, and work on the black market. Balram believes that what he is doing is for the better good. Until he gets a surprise letter from his grandmother, which was attached with a special surprise. His nephew Dharam. This surprised Balram to the core, which is what sped up his decision to make his life better. Balram tried his best to remove himself from the “Rooster Coop” and move into the Light. He continued to speak of how he was better than the Darkness and that he deserved better because of all of the things the rich stole for him. Balram knew the consequences of his actions, yet he did continued to do it.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, is an excellently written epistolary novel. The use of letters and flashbacks allows the reader into the mind of the main character, Balram. I feel that the language he used when writing this novel made it seem more realistic. It felt as if I was reading a personal journal of an Indian man living in India, rather than a book. Aravind Adiga exploited the political corruption in India through the eyes of a commoner, which was refreshing. Throughout the book, Adiga constantly spoke of the Darkness and the Light, which referred to the different types of India within India. There are many themes that are discussed in this novel, however, I believe that the main theme in this book is the struggle of power. We can see this theme everyday in our lives. In our families, our parents struggle with power, each of them wants their children to do something different and that creates conflict. At school, our teachers struggle with power in many different ways. Whether it be within family, work, or in society, Adiga also expresses this through the Caste System in India. In this novel, the author explores the idea of respect and loyalty. Balram’s struggle with being the perfect grandson and driver, serves to be a problem and it eventually blows up in his face. Balram lusted for power and success and he did whatever he needed to do to get it. The system is what divides the people of the country. There are still conflicts that affect the outcome of politics and success within the country. Balram, the main character, constantly divides the country in two, one being Darkness and the other being Light, this distinction between the two is brought up till the end of the novel. To Balram, Darkness is the part of India that is taken advantage of, he refers to this when he speaks of how the votes for politicians were rigged.  Also, the style of which the taxi drivers spoke in the novel allowed the reader to feel as if he/she were there. Overall, I enjoyed reading this novel.

Most people at some point in their lives have read an autobiography whether it be on Malcolm X, Tony Blair, or Al Pacino. Based on the experience with that single autobiography, many readers either claim to love them, or hate them. It is not until you get past what you once thought of an autobiography before, can you finally immerse yourself into the thrilling and idiosyncratic ocean of autobiographies once again. Open by Andre Agassi is the autobiography that may just be the book you need to provide that final push back into the ocean of autobiographical novels.  

Andre Agassi is most famously known for his talents and capabilities on the tennis court but whether he wants this to be his legacy is up in the air. Agassi has been playing tennis all his life-starting professionally at 16-up to the age of 36 where he was physically incapable of performing. Through those 20 years of professional tennis, he managed to pull out eight grand slam single wins and a Master Cup, which earned him the 7th spot in, “Greatest Tennis Player of All Time” list by Sports Illustrated Magazine. With the spare time before his retirement, he founded the Andre Agassi Foundation for Education which lead him to found the Andre Agassi Prepatory School, a charter school in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was roughly three years after his retirement when he wrote this book with the help of some of his best friends, the people who knew him best.

While he spent the greater portion of his life playing tennis, in the first chapter, the first page actully, he blatantly states, “I play tennis for a living, even though I hate tennis with a dark and secret passion, and always have.” For Andre though, quitting was never an option. As a child, his dad would not allow him to quit, as a teen he hated school so much but was given the opportunity to play tennis all day versus go to school and took it, and as an adult, he didn’t have enough of an education to know what or how to do anything else. Most people find this passionate hatred confusing because if you excel at something and pursue it, many assume that you love to do it. That is not the case that is expressed in this book.

Throughout this book, Agassi goes into great depth about the struggles he goes through in tennis and his self-discovery because he has never known exactly who he is. The only thing he has known, is that while he may only be one person, there are two different sides to him, the one that goes out on the court, and the one that exists off the court. In the process of trying to figure out who he is, he experiments with his appearance, usually as an act of rebellion. However, in the book, one of his closest friends helps him to analyse how other see him and in Agassi’s own words, “...people have been fooled by my changing looks, my clothes and hair, into thinking that I know who I am. People see my self-exploration as self-expression.” This really helps you to see through the eyes of the people that see him as both a player and a person and get an idea of the bulwark he puts up to outsiders.

Now that Andre is on stable ground in his life, with his wife Stefanie Graf and two children, Jaden and Jaz, he is content with his life. His wife Stefanie Graf is a retired professional women's tennis player who is considered one of the best female players of all time and to some, one the best tennis players ever.  With his education foundation the fore-front of his professional life, he has no intent of going back onto the courts for anything more than the occasional bout with his wife.

One thing that I really appreciate is how in depth his writing is with his emotions and how he is able to recall all of these moments with such vivid description. It lets you get a better idea of who Andre Agassi is and helps you to get a better understanding behind Andre’s numerous decisions and his feelings toward certain things. However, he does sometimes dwell on things for a little bit too long which is irritating, but it helps the reader to realize what Andre truly values. Overall though, this book is a phenomenal read for anyone because of the many sensitive topics it touches on outside of his tennis life, which makes it relatable to so many different people. I am a 16 year-old girl who can still find connections between my life and his and the struggles and accomplishes he has had. While this book is for anyone who loves autobiographies it is also for those who are willing to try them or give them another chance. Not to mention anyone who is interested in self-discovery, romance, collaboration, working through struggles and going through the waves of life, no matter where the tide takes you.

Open

by: Andre Agassi

AKA Publishing: 2009

386 pages

Hyperion Book Review

by Miles Cruice-Barnett

The TechnoCore is a group of AIs (artificial intelligences) that seceded from their human creators. They still choose to work closely with the humans, though they could wipe out the entire race with a snap of their metaphorical fingers. The TechnoCore is even powerful enough to create an ‘Ultimate Intelligence’ that could predict the future. That means predicting every possible outcome in the entire universe with 100% accuracy. At least, it would be 100% accurate if it were not for Hyperion. Hyperion is a planet on the outskirts of a galactic government called the Hegemony. It is a mysterious planet that has many strange things that even the technologically advanced human race and the power TechnoCore cannot understand. The biggest mystery on the planet is the Shrike. The Shrike is a menacing thing that seems to be somehow connected to time. It is known by many names including most notably ‘The Lord of Pain,’ and has been reported to be the cause of much death and destruction on Hyperion. The Shrike is a god to some; others think it is simply a story; yet others believe that it is a monster from the future, but no one really knows the truth about the Shrike, or if it even exists. The book is about 7 people that are hand picked by the Hegemony to go on a pilgrimage to confront the Shrike. However, the majority of the book is comprised of each person’s individual story of why they are on the journey and their personal experiences with the planet Hyperion and the infamous Shrike.

The book is unapologetic about throwing the reader into the strange futuristic system of the Hegemony. There are many terms that are not explained, many places that are not described, and it makes the book hard to follow at times. However, it also makes for a more realistic atmosphere. If someone were to write a narrative of their day, they would not bother to explain what a cell phone is because they would not expect anyone from a distant past to be reading the narrative. Hyperion allows the reader to use context clues and their imagination to fill the gaps of careful description. This is great for people who like to dissect a plot or read between the lines. Because it is written from so many different perspectives, each story has its own writing style unique to the character. Dan Simmons does a great job of capturing the essence of each of the pilgrims with the way he shapes their story telling. Every time you pick up Hyperion it is like there is a new book waiting for you inside, yet each story connected somehow with the same sub-plot of the planet Hyperion and the Shrike. This aids to keep the book interesting, though coherent, for those who might get bored of a book easily.

Time is a strange concept in the book. The development of the Hawking Drive allows travel faster than light speed, but this results in a ‘time debt.’ While you may experience 2 weeks on the ship in a cryogenic sleep, hundreds of years could pass in the outside world. Because of this, time and age are relative things and it makes for an interesting understanding of some of the characters. The Time Tombs are another example of how time is used to craft this book. The Time Tombs are moving backwards in time from an indefinite future. Many of the concepts in Hyperion are hard to comprehend, but those who like a challenge will enjoy it.

The second book in the series is ‘The Fall of Hyperion.’ It is a continuation of the story, but has a completely different point of view that gives some insight to what has been happening in the government and the war for control of Hyperion. It is a great way to create extra mystery and excitement after the stories of the 7 pilgrims are over. The transition of the books is confusing at first, but ultimately they work really well together.

Over all, Hyperion is a challenge worth accepting. The challenge in and of itself is part of what makes the book so enjoyable. It can be confusing and hard to wrap your head around at times, but it creates a world like no other. The writing styles and mysteries of the book will keep you interested the entire time, and the end of each chapter will leave you wanting more. Hyperion is a great book for anyone who loves science fiction, or even someone just looking to get lost in another world.

Hyperion, Dan Simmons. Bantam Spectra. December 1995. 482 pages. Science Fiction.

 The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

“I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded; not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” A gripping and enthralling book about betrayal and self-redemption, The Kite Runner had me hooked from the first page. Khaled Hosseini, the author, was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Kite Runner is the first book this author wrote, it was published in 2003. It also received many awards, one of them being the “Literature to Life Award.” In respect to the authors homeland, this is a novel about Afghanistan and the trials and tribulations a nation, and its people go through. The Kite Runner takes on a broad theme of life, love, humanity, courage, and brotherhood. It begins in early Afghanistan, around the 1970’s, before the Russian military invaded and the formation of the monarchy. The political development of Afghanistan is the backdrop of the story, however, culture and pre-war Afghanistan are one of the main focal points in the story. Against a long trail of national despair, Hosseini is able to compose a universal story of redemption and betrayal that far exceeds its setting.

As the novel begins, protagonist, Amir, the son of a wealthy merchant, is approaching manhood. His friend and servant, Hassan, is from the socially inferior group the Hazara tribe and Shi’a sect of Islam. This foreshadows the tension that will remain the center of the story. Amir and his father, are apart of the Pashtun tribe and Sunni branch of Islam. Amir, Hassan and both their fathers live together in the wealthy section of Kabul. The Hazaras act as servants to the Pashtuns, however, are treated like family which clashes with what’s socially accepted.

While Amir and Hassan played together and were friends, the difference in social ranking between them gave their relationship a wary tension. Amir’s father, also called “Baba”, treats Hassan like a second son. This causes awe and hate to spring up within Amir for his father. Similarly, Amir is secretly jealous  of Hassan’s courage and ability to hold Baba’s love. The author is able to capture this complicated family dynamic very vividly. On numerous occasions, Hassan defends Amir against bullies. One winter day in the mid 1970’s, Amir’s neighborhood had their annual kite tournament. Amir’s spinelessness reaches its highest point when he sees a group of bullies overwhelm Hassan and threaten to rape him. Instead of helping his friend in need, Amir runs away.

There are very few characters in fiction that are as revolting as Amir. Khaled Hosseini is able to take on hatred, envy, and rivalry so much that the reader will feel a lack of empathy towards Amir and his situation. As the Russian invasion begins, Amir and his father leave Afghanistan and settle in the United States. In their stay in the U.S. the roles become reversed. The once independent and prosperous Baba, can only find a measly job at a gas station while Amir easily blends in and becomes an English Major, which later turns to a successful writer. Although life seems to be going great for Amir, the betrayal still weighs heavily on him for the next 20 or so years.

Throughout the novel, there have been many moments when things went dark. When a call from an old friend is presented before us, the theme of redemption is revealed. Rahim Khan, an old family friend, called him from Pakistan telling him that “There is a way to be good again.” Amir takes this chance to go to back and make right all the wrongs he committed. During his return,  Amir is confronted with doing the honorable thing and saving Hassan’s orphaned child or returning home empty handed. After his decision to save Sohrab, the orphaned child, Amir encounters a former nemesis, who is now apart of the Taliban. The story takes on a dark path as Hosseini describes how Sohrab was being sexually harassed by a large group of men that belonged to the Taliban, among them is Amir’s nemesis. After a long and painful confrontation, Amir succeeds in liberating Sohrab and bringing him to America to live with him. While this may seem like a good thing, Sohrab yearns for his old life, which Amir is unable to provide.

“Dangerous, sexy, romantic, and intense. I dare you to stop reading.” Tahereh Mafi, composes her ideas into words that brings out emotions of different kinds. A power to shake up the world, a touch that freezes the body, a feel that conquers the heart, the sentences on each page has quality, depth, and interest, your fingers will flip those pages without a rest. The precise amount of details and Mafi’s use of figurative language truly captivates the reader’s attention. Her writing embodies the definition of creative writing.

Unravel Me is a book filled with amusing plots that explores different ideas of reality in a fictional story. It narrates a story of a girl with a romance tale, a girl who faces conflicts, and a girl with a very special gift. Her name is Juliette. She possess a power like no other at the tip of her fingers. In a split second, her clenched fist can create an abyss and send the world trembling. But all that is just another reason why she is closed up from everyone else. It is in her least interest to hurt anyone. It seems to her that this power just hunts her and that it’s just another mishap in her life. The only good it has done is Adam, the one that sends her heart beating a skip too fast. This lethal power brought the two together but coincidentally it has created a trap there too.

The mood of the book is moderately dark and dejected, and dystopia may not be the most favored genre for certain people but the experience of reading this book is everything except that. Mafi makes the readers wonder how she has the power to develop such passionate feelings for this fictional story. She leaves the readers in wonderment and one of the main ways that she does that is through her descriptive words. Mafi’s descriptions are not just describing, they are another way to engross the readers and illustrate the perfect picture. She uses metaphors, personifications, the five senses and more when she is describing.  

Throughout the book, Mafi presents unpredictable new situations but the storyline is solid and the composition is very unique. One of those unique qualities being striking through words in the book. Unravel Me is sort of like Juliette's diary, everything is stated but certain words or sentences are crossed out with a thin line. These strikes serve a purpose in showing the readers how Juliette feels but doesn’t want to mention or admit those crossed out words to herself. Mafi also separates the book into many small chapters to keep the readers going. She writes in first person point of view to share the thoughts going on in Juliette, the main character’s mind. She utilizes vivid sensory language to send chills down your spine and make you feel. The structure of this book is an integration of all these techniques.  

A major principle of this book lies in learning how to cope with obstacles. All throughout the book Juliette is facing some type of problem, either its the feeling of loneliness, the fear of hurting someone or loving someone. Each of these internal and external conflicts help her progress and learn about herself. She transforms from a shy, antisocial teenager to a brave, confident young lady. These points in transformation are points where she decides to try out something different. As the reader, these points are very clear because of the contrast between her action and her personality. Mafi does a great job emphasizing these parts as well.    

Shatter Me and Unravel Me are the first two novels in a trilogy about Juliette. This series by Tahereh Mafi is a New York Times and a USA Today bestselling series. Mafi wrote in the back of her book, “when unable to find a book, she can be found reading candy wrappers, coupons, and old receipts.” That maybe a source or inspiration to her creative writing.    

Overall, the book is amazing. There are so many things that happened in the book you just have to read it and experience it. Discover love, hate, and power all in one and see Juliette’s journey throughout the book. Unravel Me is made up of seventy three chapters and each of those seventy three chapters serve a purpose in enhancing the storyline by giving the readers a better understanding of what’s going on. Anyone would enjoy it. But specifically people who enjoy romance stories and supernatural characters, so if you’re one of those people, go check it out!  

Title: Unravel Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Date of publication: 2/5/13

Number of pages: 461

Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Romance

Creative Part:

• The found poem, Juliette, touches the different points the author and the narrator presents in the book in a few simple phrases extracted from the book. Juliette outlines the book, it mentions the main character/ the narrator, Juliette’s supernatural power, her feelings throughout the book and her love story.   
  

Found Poem:

Juliette

My blood, a million degrees below zero

The earth fissures under my fingers

I have the power … to destroy everything.  

So, says society, I am a monster

I’m buried 50 feet underground

Everyday, I stare at these 4 walls

I'm never quite certain whether or not I'm actually alive.

My skin and bones craving warm affection.

“Juliette,” he says

he mouths the name,

barely speaking

he’s pouring molten lava into my limbs

Never knew I could melt straight to death.

2

4

6 seconds

The air is still.

My skin is scared.

“It’s never been a secret. I want you,” he whispers and letter by letter he presses the words into my skin.