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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 ...
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The Secret

The Secret

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 they've never blown my mind away. The writing has never felt exceptional to me. And the characters... nothing unique.

In fact, if anything, the characters have always been merely okay to me. Especially Alanna. She grows more and more "merely okay" with every book. Jonathan is turning into a douche. George is pretty great, but I'm not head over heels. The only one I truly adore isn't even human - he's a cat!
I would support you, Salem Faithful!
I truly think these books may be a bit too young for me. Like, if I read it at 12, I would praise the heck out of them, as so many do. As it is, at twenty, I don't find much in them. I don't think they're exciting, I don't think they're overly clever. I mean, J.K Rowling put hints to stuff that would be important in the seventh book in the freaking first book. That's clever. In Song of the Lioness, things just happen, usually without too much warning or hints. 

This book was a bit better on that front - definitely an upturn from the first book, where the last chapter just whacked me in the face because where the heck did that come from? it was like I was suddenly in a different story! Ahem. Anyways...

The plot in this one was... okay. Didn't much like how the romance overtook everything once Jon appeared, or how quickly SPOILER Alanna turned to George once things fell apart END SPOILER and it was definitely less exciting than the last two books. I felt like this book was written just so Alanna would accept her magic, so it could be used in the final installment. Let's at least hope the last one is even a tiny bit epic due to that.

Anyways, I will finish this series. Only one book left, after all, and it's a pretty fast and meaningless past time for me. But I'm sorry - still not the biggest fan...


Nitzan★

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Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff

Stormdancer by Jay Kristoff Series:   The Lotus War #1 Source:  gifted hardcover Publisher:  Thomas Dunne Books Publication Date: Sep 18, 2012 Age Group: Young Adult A DYING LAND The Shima Imperium verges on the brink of environmental collapse; an island nation once rich in tradition and myth, now decimated by clockwork industrialization and the machine-worshipers of the Lotus Guild. The skies are red as blood, the land is choked with toxic pollution, and the great spirit animals that once roamed its wilds have departed forever. AN IMPOSSIBLE QUEST The hunters of Shima’s imperial court are charged by their Shōgun to capture a thunder tiger – a legendary creature, half-eagle, half-tiger. But any fool knows the beasts have been extinct for more than a century, and the price of failing the Shōgun is death. A HIDDEN GIFT Yukiko is a child of the Fox clan, possessed of a talent that if discovered, would see her executed by the Lotus Guild. Accompanying her father on the Shōgun...
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topic: nasty or noble?

source: tumblr " And he understood human nature so deeply, not just our great capacity for virtue and for goodness, and for love, but our capacity for pain and destruction and anger." Tom Hiddleston on Shakespeare There's something about the way Mr Hiddleston (Mr Hiddleston, haha, why am I so formal? I don't know him personally, so I don't feel like I'm privileged to address him on first name basis) says things, about the characters he plays or on human nature itself, but whenever he says something like this, I get very inspired. Mind you, I haven't taken psychology or studies on human nature at all, so I don't speak from professional knowledge.  "I believe we are born clean slates, and we all have a capacity to be nasty or noble" Nasty or Noble? They're two halves of a whole, I think, and we have to embrace both parts in ourselves. A person that is completely nice, completely passive and serene, is empty. He that never yells, or spea...
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topic: happy books or sad books?

This blog post is prompted by a discussion I had at lunch on Friday with my table of friends. We're all book lovers, so it became a passionate discussion. I make myself happy, even when I'm not. If someone were to ask me "Are you happy?" I wouldn't know what to respond. I think because I'm quite bubbly at school, people automatically assume that I'm just always happy all the time. I'd beg to differ: I'm not a very cheery person when I get home. It's because of my introverted-ness. I know you're thinking "What? Then why is she bubbly at school?" Because I like being friendly, but school usually drains out all my social-ness and I recover over the weekend by staying in room all by myself and doing things alone. Back on topic. We asked a question: "Which do you prefer, sad books or happy books?" I said, "I like sad books" And that fired off into passionate "argument". A friend (let's call her C) told...
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