Sunday, May 15, 2011

Favorite Book/Series: The Inheritance Series (Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr, Inheritance (Nov. 8 2011) ) Christopher Paolini

So this is my favorite series, The Inheritance Series by Christopher Paolini. I started reading Eragon the first book during 4th grade and at that time, I was really into fantasy and dragons and wizards and all that so I really liked the book. Then Eldest came out and I read that basically until the book cover fell off and my mom had to tape it up for me. Then 2 years ago, Brisingr came out and I was just like "I MUST GET IT" and it turned out to be a GREAT sequel. Now I just found out on Amazon that the 4th and final book is coming out and I was like shouting my head off. 
The series is about a farm boy named Eragon and one day while hunting in the woods, he finds a blue stone and that eventually hatches into a dragon. Meanwhile, they live in an empire ruled by an evil emperor who is also a dragon rider and wants to destroy all other dragons besides his own so he sends armies just to capture Eragon and his dragon. So throughout the series, it talks about the battles that Eragon fights, his trainings, and the war between rebels and the Empire. 








Favorite Author: John Grisham

John Grisham is a very well known writer who writes legal thrillers and crime mysteries. The first book of his that I read was The Appeal which is about a chemical plant that dumped waste into a river causing the cancer rate of the nearby cities to skyrocket and so the people sued but because of a "friendly" judge, the company got away with no harm. I really like John Grisham because his books are so interesting and it just catches you in the first few pages of the book. Even though some of his plots are somewhat similar, the way he writes it just makes the books completely different. And also, I am quite interested to the subject of legal matters I guess, that may be a reason why I am so into his books. Not that I want to be a lawyer when I grow up because from what he writes, lawyers do the work of the devil with reading documents 100 hours a week and no family time, 3 hours of sleep a day, sometimes sleeping in the office, and doing some secretary work for the partners at the top of the law firm.


North and South Reflection

North and South is a very interesting story that is just a love story and dilemmas of a young girl Margaret. In the story she goes through many troubles within her family and also internal conflicts about a rich windmill owner, Mr. Thornton. In her family, her mom is sick and ends up dying, her brother is an outcast and can never return to England, and eventually, her father dies too. Although that is already a lot of burden, she also faces her own problem such as adapting to a new environment and her feelings towards her crush.
After reading this story, I think that Margaret is just another typical girl and it is perfectly normal for her to have dilemmas within the love department although I must say the tragedies that happen around her are quite devastating. Although I was not interested in the book in the beginning and am not really excited by reading a love story, I think the book is quite well written and the whole book is good overall. Girls are all like that, cannot decide on what they want and are not clear what their feelings are. I have many experiences of girls like that... I feel sympathy for Mr. Thornton and it really is sad for him to be facing strikes, love problems, and in the end poverty... It just shows that love is unfair to us guys...

King Lear Reflection

The story King Lear is a very confusing one and the most confusing of the 3 plays that we read this semester. First it talks about a king who distributes his land to his daughters based on what they say their love for him is. In the end, the 2 sisters that get the lands don't really mean what they say, they just say that they love King Lear to get more land. Then it jumps to a scene where Edmund fakes a letter for his brother and makes his brother have to leave the castle and run away. And after all that mess, the two stories are put together and King Lear is unwanted and cast away by his daughters and Edmund turns his father into an outlaw too. And in the end, everyone dies...
I think this play is just really really confusing... I had to read it quite a few times in order for me to have some basic understanding of what the play was about. And after reading summaries such as those on Spark Notes, I still couldn't fully understand what the play was about. But from what I know of the play, I learned some lessons. First of all, in this world, many people will try to "get rid" of you because of competition and use many inhumane ways to do so, so we must be careful and not give these people a reason or way to get rid of us. Secondly, people will tell you everything just to make you happy and even though you may know that, you will still favor them over people who actually do care about you but don't say so. From this we can see that human nature is purely evil and we should control ourselves and think about what others say about us.