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review: rooftops of tehran

book info: on sale: now copy from: public library pages: 348 review written: 21.12.17 originally published: 2009 edition read: Penguin NAL 2009 title: Rooftops of Tehran author: Mahbod Seraji In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran's sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari's stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah's secret police. The violent consequences awaken him to the reality of living under a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice... my thoughts: This book was first published in 2009 and I remember adding it to my list around that time but never actually reading it since I preferred checking out library books to ...

The Secret

an absentee blogger for November! + updates :)

For those you follow my sister blog, Voyage, you'll know that I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year! (username: Kirthi06) So that means I'll be packed all month, which means little to no reading :(

A bit of an update on my literature life. I finished The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) unit and I'm sorry to say that...it lost it's magic. I still love it but doing that study guide really killed it >_<

I'm reading Oedipus in class (The King, Rex, etc..) and I am pleased to say that I have been cast Oedipus every day we've read it in class. I think I've surprised people with the fervour in which I read my role. Oedipus is a very tragic, emotionally distraught character and many times, I found myself choking up and wailing. I feel like I have absorbed him as a character and afterwards, I find myself with thoughts like "I can't believe...oh god, slept with my mother...had kids with her! That's so sick!" and then thinking "Wait a minute. I'm a sixteen year old girl. I have no beard. I'm not Oedipus"

I pronounce it incorrectly: "Oh (like in owe)-dipus", and I remember thinking it was "Ode-ipus". Yet I learned that it is actually "Ehd-ipus". My teacher and friends keep correcting me in exasperation. :)

Also, our next parallel reading is Tao of Pooh. I can genuinely say this is the worst year of Lit class I have ever experienced. Winnie the Pooh is my most favourite childhood book/video-cassette series in the world. He is the kindest bear, and he has the most lovely group of friends in the Hundred Acre Woods and I don't want to know that "The author didn't intend for this to be a children's book. It was actually meant to explain Tao and Buddhist beliefs" I love Buddhism, since it ties in a lot with Hinduism, but I don't want yet another book to destroy something I love, this time something I treasure more dearly than any character ever, even Arthur the Aardvark. ~sob~ I remember going to bed with my mum beside me or dad and I'd ask for bedtime stories.

My Dad, knowing how much I loved Winnie the Pooh, would attempt to make up stories involving them. But being a serious fan, I found faults in them right away, and kept asking questions and correcting him even. So eventually it became ME telling stories to THEM and then going to sleep afterwards. I remember saying, "ONCE upon a TIME in the HUNDRED acre woods etc..." and I'd base the story after the events of the day.

So if I had a bad day and my parents wouldn't buy me a stuffed animal or something, that night Pooh bear would "ask Christopher Robin for a toy for him to play with. But Christopher Robin said he wouldn't, so Pooh bear went back home in his tree and desperately wished for one" and then after, I'd offer a solution that I hoped my parent's would take as a hint. Like "all the creatures of the Hundred Acre Woods felt bad for Pooh bear and decided to come together and make him a toy. Kanga and Roo brought over spare scraps of cloth, Owl brought some of his old feathers, Rabbit brought needles and string, and they all made him a stuffed animal. Pooh bear loved it very much"

Winnie the Pooh is such an integral part of my childhood and I'm dreading, terrified, that my teacher will ruin yet another story I love.

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review: the elementary particles

book info: on sale: now copy from: public library pages: 263 review written: 23.5.16 originally published: 1998 ("Les particules élémentaires") edition read: Knopf, 2000, translation by Frank Wynne title: The Elementary Particles author: Michel Houellebecq The Elementary Particles part-story part-metaphysical-rants in an interesting narration from two characters, half-brothers borne of a hippie and absentee mother in the 60s: Michel and Bruno. Michel is an asexual scientist who "expresses his disgust with society by engineering one that frees mankind at last from its uncontrollable, destructive urges" and Bruno is a crass brute driven by sexual desires that lusts after his lost youth. This book follows their stories from childhood to their middle age, spinning around the past and present and major and minor characters in an intriguing narrative that had me reading every single word for fear of missing anything crucial. (quote from book summary) When I first began to...

The Woman Who Ride Like a Man by Tamora Pierce

The Woman Who Ride Like a Man by Tamora Pierce Series:   Song of the Lioness #3 Source:  Bought paperback Publisher:  Atheneum Books For Young Readers Age Genre: Young Adult Challenges: Flights of Fantasy Challenges:  Prequel-Sequel Challenges:  TBR-Cleaning my Shelves Alanna fights on... Newly knighted, Alanna of Trebond seeks adventure in the vast desert of Tortall. Captured by fierce desert dwellers, she is forced to prove herself in a dual to the death. Although she triumphs, dire challenges lie ahead. As her mysterious fate would have it, Alanna soon becomes the tribe's first female shaman, despite the desert dwellers' wariness of the foreign woman warrior. Alanna must battle to change the ancient tribal customs of the desert tribes--for their sake and for the sake of all Tortall. That's me. With everyone else clapping in the background. Once again, I find myself unimpressed with the Song of the Lioness. It's not that I dislike the books. It's just that th...

The Sweet Gum Tree by Katherine Allred

The Sweet Gum Tree by Katherine Allred Source:  bought Kindle copy Publisher: Ellora's Cave Publication Date:  May 12, 2005 Age Genre: adult (not graphic) Sweet tea, corn bread, and soup beans—everyday fare for eight-year-old Alix French, the precocious darling of a respected southern family. But nothing was ordinary about the day she met ten-year-old Nick Anderson, a boy from the wrong side of town. Armed with only a tin of bee balm and steely determination, Alix treats the raw evidence of a recent beating that mars his back, an act that changes both of their lives forever. Through childhood disasters and teenage woes they cling together as friendship turns to love. The future looks rosy until the fateful night when Frank Anderson, Nick's abusive father, is shot to death in his filthy trailer. Suddenly, Nick is gone—leaving Alix alone, confused and pregnant. For the next fifteen years she wrestles with the pain of Nick's abandonment, a bad marriage, her family and friend...

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