Thursday, December 22, 2011

Scorpia


I am currently reading a book Scorpia by Anthony Horowitz. The plot shows a typical protagonist – antagonist conflict, which leads to a change of the main, positive character, Alex Rider, into bad. His father is killed by an assassin and now he wants to kill his father's murderer.  To do this, he joins a worldwide terrorist group Scorpia. Ms. Rothman, who is the head of the Scorpia organization, told Alex false information about his father’s killer. That information changes him dramatically. From an innocent, smart and the non-violent boy he was, he became an angry enemy, who wants bloody revenge on the person who killed his father. The thing is that Alex never met and basically didn't know his father. It surprises me how a boy like him could change so quickly by one piece of false information. How deep are the feelings of the revenge or there is something else behind. Looking for his father’s killer, I think he wants to learn more about his father. To make sure Scorpia could trust him he behaves like he doesn't care who his father was but only about his vendetta.  At first you do not know the truth. Personal grief blinds and makes people obsessed with their mission. Is Alex going to become a gruesome terrorist? Although it is possible, I think he is just trying to find more about his father. Finding who he was may help Alex to find who he wants to be. The conflict between Alex and Scorpia, or between Alex and Ms. Rothman is at the end a conflict between justice and injustice, between good and evil. That conflict has to be resolved first in Alex’s heart. Finding revenge should not be done against the law. Braking law, even in a “good case” is a crime. I hope Alex will stay on the right side.   

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Other Boleyn Girl: Betrayal

History fiction is an interesting genre. You know the basic facts, but do not real people's feelings. A talented author goes much deeper than historians and tries to tell the story from another point of view. A human point. "The Other Boleyn Girl" by Philippa Gregory is filled with human emotions, expectations and feelings. These real, human feelings are just as simple as yours and mine, but they changed the history.  
Anne, Mary's sister has just betrayed her. She is trying to seduce the King into marrying her. You can imagine what Mary's feelings are. She is angered just the same as Anne was at the beginning. Her parents on the other hand are happy since their first plan was to make Anne the Queen. Mary does not give up so easily and she is trying to seduce the King as well, still hoping to become the Queen. In this book, there is not even one chapter that doesn't introduce you to a new conflict. For example, one chapter is about the rivalry between Mary and Anne, another chapter is about an unknown person, who poisoned the Cardinal. Later in the book we learned that Henry, the King, desperately needed a heir for the throne. Everyone is looking to fulfill his or her selfish needs. Just as today.
There are no easy answers at the time. People's emotions are running high again and become the reasons for their actions. The people hate Anne because she kicked out the Queen Katherine from her throne. Mary is angry at Anne and hopeful that the King will spot her again. The Boleyn family is both happy by Anne's progress but angry at Mary for just forgetting about the Boleyn family promise. What a exciting story! I love the history fiction. 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Other Boleyn Girl

I am currently reading The Other Boleyn Girl. Although some might say it's more of a girl book, I think it is a very interesting and intriguing book. It is about two sisters who are going against each other to become the queen of England during Henry the VIII. Dazzled, the narrator and the main character Mary falls in love with him but realizes her family's scheme to make her sister Anne queen. She then goes against her family for love and take fate into her own hands. I remember them making a movie about the book but I didn't see it. I really want to though.
Emotions are running high when Mary fights against Anne to be the queen and love Henry. Mary is very scared of what will happen. She knows that her parents might exile her because she defied them. She knows the king might choose Anne instead of her but she will fight on. Anne along with the family is very disappointed and angered by Mary's betrayal. Mary's father wants to exile Mary and take her Boleyn fame but Anne wants to give her a chance. First Anne was angered but she saw the King also loved Mary as well so she played with Mary, also against her parents. Now, she is devising a plan to get rid of Queen Katherine, the Kings wife so either she or Mary could marry the king. That is just plain evil there. Wealth could lead to horrible things.  

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Finished Son Of Neptune

I have finally finished The Son of Neptune. I was slightly disappointed at the end when all the characters from the whole Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus series didn't meet together. Percy just puts his arms around Hazel and Frank and says: here are my friends, from Camp Half-Blood. I think the book had more dialogue than action which is fine by me, but some of the dialogue was pointless. Many of the characters lost their family and most of the time a kid went: "how's your family? My family is rich and well."
The other kid who lost their parents is like: "Oh, my mom and dad died when i was little."
Then he replies: "Oh I'm sorry."
And they don't talk anymore. They feel like they shouldn't be friends because he doesn't have parents. I think thats one of the reasons Hazel and Frank don't have many friends, because they both lost their families. I think when they came back from the quest successful, everyone wanted to be their friends.
Another thing is that the ending. In every Percy Jackson book i've read, the demigods always prevail and coplete the quest. I want a story when the heroes fail and the next book will be about how they resolve that failure. I hope that happens in the next book in the series: Mark of Athena.   

Thursday, November 17, 2011

The son of Neptune: Character emotions

I am currently reading The Son of Neptune by Rick Riordan. In the book, we are introduced to two new main characters, a girl named Hazel and a boy named Frank. Hazel is a daughter of Hades which is the greek god of the underworld. She is a very troubled girl. When she was a small girl, nobody liked her. Her classmates thought her mother and herself were bewitched and jinxed. She was depressed then. She was very sad. She was only happy when she was with her only friend, a friend that she could relate to, a friend she could talk to normally, and a friend she wasn't afraid of. All of that changed when her mother moved. She lost her only friend and now had to live on her own. Her only joy was her horse. She could relate to them. Even if they were wild, she could touch them and ride the. She felt connected to them. Now, she's at a camp called Camp Jupiter because of her mother's passing. Her cabin mates also think she's weird and crazy but she knows she has a new good friend. Frank.
Frank was always weird in both the inside and out. He looked like a 5 year old who took steroids. Kids were afraid of his strength but made fun of him when they learned he was a wimp. He had many family matters. His mom was very warlike and aggressive(guess who his father is) so she went to fight in Afghanistan were she died. When his mom died, his grandma told him a lot of secrets. Frank was horrified when he learned these things. He learned his life depended on one thing, that his grandma had kept safe for years. But when he learned these things, he ran away, all the way to Camp Jupiter where he was accepted as a demigod. Now two friends live depressed and only have each other to comfort.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Freak the Mighty: emotions

In the book, Max changes dramatically during the book. He is like an emotional roller coaster.
In the beginning, Max feels alone and sad. He has no friends so he stays in his basement called the down under. Until he meets Freak. Freak changes his world. He shows Max lots of things. Max becomes proud because he has his first friend. They have a lot of adventures, fighting dragons, saving princesses, and going on stealth missions. All of that changes after a while. Max's dad was a murderer and people expect Max to be a killer too but Freak tells Max to show people who he really is:a good friend.
After his dad kidnaps him to show him he's not a killer, he is very frightened because he does remember that his dad did kill his mom but that quickly changes when Freak saves him. The two boys are like yin, and yang. Max with his big body and Freak with his big brain. 
                  ***SPOILER ALERT***
After all those adventures something heartbreaking happens. Freak passes away. Max is devastated. He stays in his room(the basement) and doesn't even talk to his grandparents. After a while, he calms down and realizes that Freak taught him a lot of things, especially how to have fun.