I Read "Living Juicy" by S.A.R.K.

Living Juicy: Daily Morsels for Your Creative Soul by S.A.R.K.
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Readers are supposed to read one page a day of this book, because in each page the author talks abut something that should be thought about and practiced. But I couldn't, and kept reading until I finished it, in approximately half a month. Now I can reread it as it should be read.

Living juicy is about finding the right and most delicous juice to nourish our creative souls, as the author says, and start seeing life differently. As a matter of a fact, it made me look at it in the innocent way I used to when I was a wee child, and eveyone can guess how delightful is that.During my read, I had to bear the wisdom tooth's dreadful pain, and the blissfully dear book made me forget it for few moments and relax. Yes! It can be that powerful!

All of its pages are ornamented with simple and beautiful drawings that inspired me to include some in my diary, and it turned out to be a very great idea.

S.A.R.K. offers in her book 52 lessons, to fit the 52 weeks of the year, and each page provides one part of the lesson of the week in question (I hope it makes sens for you), just so you get an idea about the book's curious structure.

I'd like to conclude with one of my favorite quotes that sums it all up:
"A day can shift into a profound place by the reading of a single perfect sentence, at the perfect time."

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Read "Emily's Quest" By L. M. Montgomery!

Emily's Quest by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With this book, I was able to figure out what Lewis's famous quote "We read to now we are not alone" actually means.

Emily is 20, and she realizes that she's in a painful, one-sided love with her childhood friend Teddy. Teddy is a famous artist now, and he seldom visits Blair Water. Her dearest friend Ilse is also in Montreal, building her successful career and our poor heroine found herself alone and distressed over her friends' neglect and had many white nights because of this. She has her own successful career of an author, but that was not enough to feel supported and balanced.

Emily's pains were so real to me that I wondered if Montgomery was describing her own, and so were all the characters of the book, in the back of my head they are real poeple who lived once in this world.

To sum it up, Lucy Maud Montgomery is, and will always be the one for me!

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I Read "Emily Climbs" by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This second book, as the reader may predict, continues to tell of Emily's story of life.

Emily goes to high school in Shrewsbery, and does well there in terms of study. She meets up with friends and fiends, rejects many proposals of marriage (partly because of her dreams and ambitions, and partly because of being in love with here childhood friend), gets humiliated at times and had to bear poeple's dreadful injustice.
All in all, she's "got a bit of bitter worldly wisdom" as she had mentioned in her diary.

That, again, as I had said in my previous review of the first book, might sound very common, but it really is written in a style that will make you think you had never read anything like it before.

Well the novel cast its spell on me, and I think that anyone with a sensible taste (not that I accuse any reader of anything other than that) would indulge its monotonousness and only enjoy the beauty of its style and ideas.

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I Read "Dix Petit Nègres" (And Then There Were None) By Agatha Christie.

Dix petits nègres by Agatha Christie
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What is funny about my experience of reading this book is that I didn't even know that I was actually reading the famous "And Then There Were None" until it was mentioned by one of my good friends, as I was reading it in French, and as the title of the French version was different from the original one. It might not sound so funny to you but it was for me, and I got even more excited to finish the book after that.

It was so intriguing, and I bet that all of Agatha Christie's books are so, besides this novel made me contribute in the process of finding the culprit. As a matter of a fact, I found myself reading that rhyme more times that I care to remember, each time one of the guests dies and, of course, despite all the logical thinking I ended up getting it wrong.

I won't say more about it, because I think knowing nothing about the story is what would make it enjoyable for the reader.

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Finished Reading "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel.

Read from October 14 to November 24, 2013

 

Yann Martel went through a lot to come up with a book that would attract the curiosity of a large number of readers, as he explained in his note, and he did a good job. He wrote his novel because he was told it would make him believe in God and it did. I mean how could Pi survive without God's presence and help?

The story is told by Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi), about his life in India, in the Pacific ocean and then in Mexico and Canada.

Back in India, he tells us about his Father being being a zookeeper, and some general information about different animals that are kept (or not) in their zoo, which I found so fascinating. One learns heaps of things about them in this book. We also learn about his interest in religions, as he becomes a faithful Muslim, Hindu and Christian at the same time.

Then he narrates his adventures in the Pacific ocean, which makes the most breathtaking and incredible story I've ever heard up till now. I am not going to say more about the story, because I would like you, readers, to discover it by yourselves.

This book reinforced my ideas about the existence of a caring God (which I never doubted Thanks to Him) He who protects us from the most unexpected and horrible things, and He who only provides what is better and good for us. The only thing we should do is to do what He ordered us: to believe in Him, always trust and be grateful to Him.

So the novel has totally achieved its goal in making me feel the presence of God, and I would recommend it to every living soul.

Finished Reading "The Fault In Our Stars" By John Green!

Read from October 09 to 14, 2013

With this novel, I was like "I love you John Green", and then "I hate you John Green" and then " I forgive and love you John Green", I might sound like a Drama Queen, but everything was so unfair and sad, as Augustus and Hazel would say jokingly.

I won't talk about the story, as nearly everyone is acquainted with it, but I will talk about the book, and how I felt while reading it. Actually, I experienced almost every blessed feeling and sentiment that ever existed (I know I'm exaggerating, but I hope you will cope with it). I hated and adored the book. I often said to myself that I'm never going to re-read this novel, but then I'm mostly like "that should be given another shot". I felt bad for Augustus and Hazel, but then again I couldn't help but admire their strong will while facing off their desease. 

That being said, I really like the title of this novel, it so fits the general theme of the book, and sounds so becoming and so attractive that even though it was about a girl having cancer (and you should know, dear reader, that I'm not into this kind of books) I was so excited to read it. 

I would recommend this piece of awesomeness to every living soul.

Finished Reading "Never Let Me Go" By Kazuo Ishiguro

Read from August 28 to September 24, 2013 

 

This review contains spoilers. If you wish not to know anything about this book before reading it, which I see best for you, then please don't read that.

I thought that this novel was written by a Japanese author, as his name indicates, that it was translated from Japanese into English, and that I'd see more of those Japanese names inside of it. However, the author turned out to be British, the novel was originally written in English and there were no Japanese characters.

But there actually was another kind of people who solved normal ones' health troubles by gradually losing their own short lives. So you might imagine my feelings towards all this, or you might not. I, myself don't know what to make of it.

It seems intereting but then it feels wrong. You want to feel bad for them, but when you see how they are dealing with it without drama, you just accept their death without grieving for it. You see that there is soul within them, but you can't help noticing how cold they treated each others at times.

So those poeple are clones whose only mission in life is to donate their organs to real life poeple; otherwise they are in charge of being the donors' carers or, as I might call them, entertainers. Kathy is one of these latters. She tells us through this book the story of her short life, that will "Complete" whithin eight months or so. She tells us about Ruth, Tommy and her other friends, being children and slowly growing up into adults, and learning more about themselves in this prossess.

The story was intriguing, but the monotonous writing style kept making me want to close the book after only reading a few pages.

Finished Reading: "Emily of New Moon" by Lucy Maud Montgomery!!

Read from August 12 to 26, 2013 

 

I have always been a huge fan of L. M. Montgomery, and this book is making me fall even more in love with her. I so adore her unique writing style, and very large and creative imagination.

Emily's father is dead, and one of her mother's family members must take her in. So she goes with her Aunt Elizabeth Murray to New Moon and live there a happy life, making new friends, learning new things, and writing new letters and stories, as writing happens to be her favorite hobby. The story might not seem so becoming, but once you're in, you'll never want to be out.

I give this novel five out of five stars because there is no "six out of five stars".

Finished Reading: "Eleanor & Park" by Rainbow Rowell!!

Read from July 26 to 27, 2013 

 

What made me want to read this novel is the name "Park" in the book's title. I knew right away that it was a Korean name since I'm a huge fan of the Korean culture (although one might as well not be that and figure it out).

As I predicted, Park is a half-Korean good-looking guy, who seems to do just well in his high school life, and has passion for comics and music. The others name that figures in the title "Eleanor" belongs to a big, red-headed and beautiful girl. She returns from an "exile" to her home in Omaha, and meets Park at the school bus. Over time, they fall slowly and beautifully in love with each other, and develop such a sweet relationship.

However they went through a lot of trouble because of Eleanor's abusive stepfather (add to that that the story is set in the 80's which means that there exist no cellphones nor internet to keep in touch), but then "love will always find a way" and that's what made me literally "devour" this novel.

I even love the ending! It might be mysterious, but it's full of hope...

Finished Reading: "Please Look After Mother" by Kyung-Sook Shin!!

 

Read from May 10 to June 13, 2013

 

"Please Look After Mother". Just reading its mere title would make you eager to read the book, also you can tell that it would be an amazing read. In fact, many things about this novel contribute in making it a great one: the writing style, the fact that each section of the book in narrated by a different person, and the content/story.

The novel is telling the story of a family that lost their Mother. Each member of this family keeps remembering this or that about their Mother and regret not being a good son/daughter/husband to her, not that they treated her ill, but everyone just forgot about Mother as soon as they stopped being kids.

This book actually made me feel guilty towards my own Mother, because Mothers really need to be highly thought of, and kindly treated. Everyone are sometimes annoyed because of their Mother's nagging, but we actually forget that Mother is a human being, who have her own dreams, her own fears, her own disppointements, her own weakness, and we keep thinking of her as Mother, that has to sacrifice everything for the sake of her children.

All in all, this book should be read by everyone!!