MelissaRose13

This book is one of my favorites of the year and it is a book that I recommend everyone to read. The book might be hard to read for people since it is a textbook and most people don't like to read these sort of things. They only do so as requirement for school. You should read the book though since it pertains to globalization and globalization affects all of us. It is a system that was started to improve our world, though the ongoing results of this goal are debatable. Progress is not necessarily a good thing, nor is it always even necessary. Sometimes people mistake progression as an improvement when it actually isn't. For example, does having more roads around the world, in third world countries make the world better? Why are these roads even made for anyway? And for whom? A lot of the time roads are made to better transport goods and other materials that serve to make money. But money that doesn't benefit people, like indigenous people found in these countries. The money is mostly made for corporations and companies, which isn't fair because the point of globalization is improvement. This demonstrates that globalization doesn't necessarily mean equality for all. That it doesn't work for all people.

In this book you will learn a lot about how globalization started, how it evolved to the globalization project, how it works, and how it affects people around the world. You will learn about the global power structure. You will learn that improvement/progression is measured in economic terms. The most important thing is how much money can be made. Not how happy can you be, how healthy, how much food security people have, etc. And you might be surprised to find that globalization negatively affects many people, more so than positively affects them. I personally wasn't surprised because I have always thought that this world and that the people in it aren't that great a lot of the time. So it wasn't hard for me to accept what I was learning in the book. Not that there isn't any good in this world, but I have always considered myself realistic and I'm ok with stating that a lot of negativity permeates our planet. Whatever problems we might encounter in this country though, we are still far better off than most people in the rest of the world.

What I liked about this book was that it wasn't just a bunch of facts and statistics and things. It has a series of case studies throughout the book so you could better understand the situations globalization brings to all sorts of people. And I liked that the author doesn't ignore the inequalities found on a global scale that are caused by globalization. He talks about race, ethnicity, gender, class inequalities. I find his portrayal of these things very honest. He just presents facts whether we like them or not. This book is a learning experience and by reading it you will expand your knowledge on how this global structure works.

I would like to recommend this documentary that I think goes well with this book. It's empowering, but also upsetting.

ww.youtube.com/watch?v=duFXuRnd2CU

Rereading before I go see the movie. :D

I'm behind reviews because I've been busy working on my movie and stuff, but let me just say that this book was pretty awesome. :D I've been a fan since before the first book came out. Can't wait for the next book. :D Ah I really want to know what happens next!

‘Is it because hope is scary?’ my father asked.
I looked back at him, startled. ‘You think so, too?’
He smiled, full of love. ‘Hope is terrifying, Viola,’ he
said. ‘No one wants to admit it, but it is.’
I feel my eyes go wet again. ‘Then how can you stand
it? How can you bear even thinking it? It feels so dangerous,
like you’ll be punished for even thinking you deserved it.’
He touched my arm, just lightly. ‘Because, Viola, life
is so much more terrifying without it.’

Wow. This was pretty good. Got me hooked quickly. I decided to read this now because I have some free time before I must go on to do other things. So I figured why not? Reading is always a good way to kill time.

I'm glad I read this because even though it wasn't that long it was a compelling read. Even though I found it hard to believe that a 13yr old got picked to be one of the people to explore the new world, it didn't bother me so much because of the story. And because I liked Viola's character.

I thought the ending, in which she ends up alone because things go terribly wrong was sad, but well done. I kinda wish it was longer though to find out more about Viola and the struggles she has to go through now that things changed so drastically. But I'm assuming we see that in the series, which I haven't read at all. After this, I definitely need to read The Knife of Never Letting Go soon.

This is like the first book, so it's pretty awesome. :D This book contains more stories and adventures of Frog and Toad. Their friendship makes me happy. Definitely do yourself a favor and read this one and the other book as well. You will enjoy it. It's cute, funny, and nice.

I love this book! :D I went with a good friend of mine to Barnes and Noble and at one point we were looking at Nooks and this book was in there. I thought the cover was cute and I'm a fan of frogs so I decided to read it. My friend knows I love reading so she didn't mind. She went to look at magazines.

Anyway, this is a nice, cute, and sometimes silly book about what friendship should be like. It also has funny illustrations to go along with this book. Frog and Toad have an awesome friendship despite the fact that Frog and Toad have different personalities. Toad seems to be grumpy, while Frog is cheery. Despite this, they are always looking out for each other and spending time together. It's a give and take friendship. A balanced friendship, just like it should be. I loved this book because it shows different facets of their friendship and because it reminded me that this is how friendships should be. I'm always having trouble with my own friends, where it seems like I have to contact them first and they never ask me to hang out first. And this book just made me happy because the friendship shown was really nice.

Like for example, Toad taking care of Frog while he's sick. And coming up with all sorts of silly things to give himself inspiration to be able to make up a story for Frog. Like pouring water on himself and slamming his head against the wall. Haha. And Toad getting depressed while waiting for mail because he never receives any letters so Frog goes home and writes him a letter and give it to a snail. Then he comes back to Toad and tells him to go wait for the mail again.

I recommend this book to everyone. It's a children's book, but I think everyone will be able to appreciate it. Especially because of its portrayal of friendship.

Will write a review later. This book was awesome though. I am extremely glad I bought it. :D

I went to the bookstore a bit before catching the train home yesterday. I saw this book and I remembered that it was on my TBR list so I picked it up. :D

The book is pretty funny and also relevant to today. I was laughing at some points because the whole thing was pretty funny especially with the pictures. Especially when the grandma started taking away all the technology and throwing it out the window and her family was looking so horrified and trying to make a leap for their stuff. Haha. It's funny too because it says our technology will still be waiting for us in the morning. And it will, but after grandma tossed it out the window, it wouldn't be fully functioning. Haha. It made me laugh even more because I can imagine people actually doing that and reacting that way. :D

I also thought it was a good book because it is relevant to today. It shows us how we are so into our cell phones, TV, and other technology, how technology has come to be a major part of our lives, when sometimes we just need to unplug everything and spend more time with each other and less time with our technology. And it showed us how sometimes we lose sleep because we are so mesmerized by our technology.

I recommend this book to everyone. It's pretty funny.

O_o A description of the book!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was planning on reading this regardless, but the the synopsis seems interesting. Can't wait. :D

I was able to read this for free which was awesome. :D Anyway, this novella didn't add much to the world Lauren Oliver created, it was kinda pointless actually, but if you are a huge fan of Delirium then you should definitely read this. You will most likely enjoy it.

That being said, I enjoy Lauren Oliver's writing. It's very lyrical and flows very well. It's very nice. She really is good at her craft. That's one of the things I enjoyed best while reading this.

I didn't like Lena much Delirium, her character annoyed me for some reason. Maybe because she seemed pretty bland to me. Like so scared all the time and I found this pretty annoying. I did like Hana better than Lena because she was more outgoing and more willing to explore the world and she seemed more of a layered character than Lena. And with this novella, I liked her even more. We get a bit more insight of who she is as a person and I enjoyed what I read. In fact, I think her life is far more interesting than Lena's. She should have been the main character. Lena has struggles, but I don't see them as that huge of a deal because she accepted the society she was living in more than Hana did. Hana wanted to explore what was forbidden, she wanted to live, to be free Lena didn't. She was ok with the world she was in. I mean, she did later change her mind because of Alex, but somehow this didn't hold the same power as with Hana. I think it was because it seemed she liked Alex for no reason really, as opposed to Hana, who really just wanted to be able to experience life, including love. She wasn't just limited to love as was Lena. To me it is far more interesting to be struggling with the life you want to be free to live and the life you are forced to live.

In this novella, we get to see the struggles Hana goes through which are relatable to all of us because it is something that happens now. Flirting with someone, believing in the magic and power of love, being afraid that the person you like doesn't like you as much as you like them, etc. She is not familiar with any of this really, but she knows she wants to be. She longs to be. Unfortunately for her, her heart gets broken. The guy she really likes, only wants to get into her pants. What made this more emotional is that since she has never really experienced this, this "betrayal" hurts even more because she doesn't fully understand it. After all this, she discovers that Alex and Lena are together and happy. Why are they happy? Why can't she be happy? Is there something wrong with her?

The ending didn't surprise me that much, but I won't spoil it here. It will probably shock some people though.

As I said before, I recommend this book to people who are huge fans of this series and who prefer Hana over Lena, like I do.

If you liked reading The Space Between then you will probably like reading this book. To me it had a similar vibe of sadness/otherness and trying to figure out if you could love even if you were not designed to do so, that I enjoyed in the other book.

The main character, Desolation, is the daughter of Lucifer and she likes Hell because it is comfortable/predictable. She really has nothing to fear there, nothing that really complicates her life. Oh she has her duties as Lucifer's daughter, but she since she has a fear and dislike of Earth, Hell is, in a sense, a place where she can be at peace even though she always has this doubt that she doesn't really belong there. She feels like there's this little part of her that is warmth, warmth that she isn't supposed to have. Why does she even have this bit of warmth in her? She knows she's Lucifer's daughter, so what can she possibly do about this warmth? Can you really fight against your nature?

A quote that explains well her fear and dislike of Earth is this:

"When he turns back, the look on his face is like a fist to my gut. The loss and betrayal in his eyes belongs to me—I’d put them there. And the crushing knowledge that I can inflict pain without even trying wracks my body with shame."

Desolation has been on Earth before, which is why she fears it and dislikes it. Not because she hates people and their emotions of love and other things, but because she knows that she is supposed to be bad, but there is a warmth in her that she shouldn't have. She feels connected to people and she shouldn't care about them at all. I like her constant struggle between her emotions and her thoughts. They don't correlate and they are supposed to. They should correlate because of who she is. She is Lucifer's daughter. She should only embrace darkness, only think darkness, but it doesn't happen this way for her.

If your emotions and thoughts don't correlate, then they say separating mind and emotions are what you should do, but this is hard to do and not many can do it. It's like when you go to war. You might support the reason for the war, but you are not good at hurting other people without feeling remorse. So what do you do then? Separate mind and heart, so you can do what you have to do. And this is what Desolation struggles with. She can't really do this and she "needs" to because she is Lucifer's daughter and her heart should be completely centered on darkness. At the same time though, she really doesn't want to be like her father, but she fears that she isn't good enough. That the warmth she carries is minuscule and isn't enough not to hurt people. It isn't enough to love people properly, to do what is right.

Her back and forth internal struggle is one of my favorite aspects of the book. I also like that even though this has romance in it, an emphasis was placed on the power and beauty of friendship. Desolation is not supposed to want or need friends, but she does and the portrayal of the friendships she has with Miri and with Lucy are well done. They felt real to me. And they were also good in showing the pain she goes through because of her internal struggle.

A quote that I think describes the type of friendships she formed with some of the characters of the book is this:

"So brave. So foolish. Miri smiled and it was like the sun shone on her face—even though she was just a girl, a broken girl caught up in a living, breathing, horror story. I looked at these people, none of whom I really understood, and they certainly didn’t understand me. And yet I felt surrounded by the one need I’d never expected to feel for myself. The one need the selfish never knew was the one you couldn’t take but could only give. Love."

The reason I only gave this book 3 stars though was that I felt the first half of the book was way more interesting than the second half. I love angels and demons, but for some reason they weren't that interesting to me in this book. Well I think it was more like, since I really enjoyed the internal struggle that was the first part of the book, the second half which was mostly about preparing for battle and fighting, wasn't that great to me. I didn't really care. I mean, she's going through this all this depressing internal stuff and then it's like "Well now that Desolation is starting to accept herself for who she is, let's throw a lot more of this supernatural stuff and let's make this about some epic battle that needs to be fought or else very terrible things will happen." Didn't really work for me.

I did enjoy though that during this half of the book we got to learn more about the angels and demons involved in this battle. We got to learn more about Norse mythology, which was interesting to me since I wasn't too familiar with it.

To end my review, I leave here a link. This is the song I kept listening to while reading this book. I think it does a good job at describing the atmosphere of the book, of Desolation's struggles.

http://youtu.be/ztD6rgvUTFs

This book is pretty pointless to be honest. Doesn't really bring anything new to the books. A lot of the book consists of pictures of the tributes and it says their name, age, district, etc.

I wouldn't recommend this book really, unless it's for movie merchandise collection purposes. I do have to say though, that someone I know absolutely fell in love with the book, so you might want to check it out.

My mom bought me this book a long time ago. I was probably like 13. I enjoyed the book when I read it then and now that I reread it, I enjoyed it even more. I suppose it's because the quotes are more relevant to my life now.

This book consists of quotes and thoughts from all sorts people and like the book title says it's about wisdom. It's a good book to read because it inspires and also makes you think about life and how you should be living. And it does it all with just quotes and thoughts!

Can't really say much else about the book, except read it. Enjoy it. Take it in. Think about it. And enlighten yourself.

"God made Adam out of dirt, complete with a soul, and a heart in his chest, and that was the first man. There was a garden filled with beasts, where Adam lived alone. Then, because it wasn’t good for man to be alone, God made Lilith. And that was the first mistake. She came to Adam across a meadow delirious with flowers and he was in love. She didn’t love him back. He didn’t see the darkness in her. He was young and thought that she could change. My father says that’s just what happens when you’re young, but I still think Adam should have known. He should have seen it in her eyes, seen the truth in her jagged fingernails. He should have known you can’t change a girl with iron teeth."

This is quote is part of the prologue and I absolutely loved it. As soon as I read this I knew I was going to enjoy the book because of the dark aura I got just from the first page. Anything depressing is up my alley. I just find that the portrayal of dark things in life is a more accurate description of life than those books that are so cheerful. Not that I don't like cheerful books, but I don't know. I like the showcasing of depressing things. Like one of my professors once said, "Life is pain. And any happiness you get from any relationship will also bring you suffering. That is the truth of life." It's funny, but this was in a class about development and globalization. But the professor can get very philosophical at times, which is absolutely awesome.

Anyway, I think this quote is applicable to this book. Even though I enjoyed the supernatural aspect of it, the demons and angels, what I enjoyed the most was the relationship of the main characters, Daphne and Truman and the type of people they were presented to be. They were nowhere near perfect. In fact, they had many flaws. They were depressing, broken people who were trying to figure out what the whole point of living was, while having to deal with finding Daphne's brother who has mysteriously gone missing and trying to hide from the angel trying to kill Daphne, among other things. Their brokenness is what unites them. Both don't seem to fit in. They have this otherness/sadness vibe to them. Both which are relatable because of how our society is. Sadness/otherness is not something that is encouraged here, it makes you undesirable, unwanted. Which is the core of how they were feeling.

What makes this so relatable to us is that this otherness/sadness they have has to do with not fitting in with a group of people (Daphne is not like her sisters or any of the other demons in Hell) and being lost, alone, and helpless (Truman seems to have nowhere to turn and no way of fixing his life). These are things that we probably have all gone through in our lives at one point or another. It was pretty painful watching these characters suffer. Can you love even though you were designed not to do so? Even though you are not supposed to? Can you still hope and live a happy life even though all you know is despair? How do you even begin to mend your life?

The answer to all these questions is yes, which I loved. The answer to the last question is love. Or at least to me it seemed to me that it was about the redemption and transformative power of love. Once you start feeling a little bit of it, things gradually start getting better. And the more things start improving, the more love you start to feel, which in turn brings you happiness because it brings you a spark of hope. And I think Daphne and Truman were excellent and realistic portrayals of this.

Oh and when you reach 90% of the book, it is heartbreaking. It left me like this:



And it had me thinking, Why did this have to happen now? Why?! D;

I definitely recommend this book to everyone, especially if you like depressing books.

Here's a link to a song that reminds me of this book. Think it's pretty fitting.

http://youtu.be/ae7TY1CN6eM

This book was beautiful. I loved everything I learned and I enjoyed reading about all the work they put into these movies. So much work that they put into it and to think some of the details were't even noticed in the films. Like the details that they put into the broomsticks and the smaller details of the set. It is very inspiring, especially to me because I'm a filmmaker. Makes me want to work harder and be more dedicated to my work. I know it was a big book, but honestly I felt it could have been much longer. I felt they could have expanded on a lot more things that they worked on in the movies. But I also know that it's hard to put everything in one book. My own production book for my 25min film is 100 pages, so I imagine that they have thousands and thousands of pages of notes, drawings, sketches, and things. And I'm sure it was hard to decide what to share with the readers. And if they made it any longer it probably would have cost like $100 if not more and not many people would have bought it. This was a wonderful book. Every fan should read it.

I'm writing this review late, but better late than never. :D

Anyway, let me just say that I got this book at the dollar store, but I would have gladly paid more for it because it is useful and encouraging. I'm a believer in life being more than just for yourself. I believe that everyone should engage in community service of some sort because there is a lot of work to be done in this planet. Though globalization is supposed to help out many and it has made progress in a lot of aspects, I also believe that it has become damaging as well. Not believe I know actually, from things that I've read and learned. Think about these two things for example. 20% of the world consumes 86% of all goods and services, while the poorest consume 14%. The cattle that are raised specifically to be used for consumption, consume more than one third of the world's grain.



Isn't that insane? There is a lot of poverty and inequality in this world. A lot of the progress made is measured in economical terms and though a lot of money is being made, it doesn't mean it is being spread throughout equally. It's sometimes hard to remember, but for those of us living in the U.S, our lifestyle is not a common one. We are the minority in the world. Even for those of us who don't have that much money, we are most likely still better off than a lot of people in the world. Therefore, I believe, because we are better off, we should be helping people more. Our world is a mess and though things will never be perfect I think at least something can be done. And I think the best way to begin is to start small, like volunteering around your community, then expanding and seeing if you can volunteer in other countries. The book doesn't tell you, you should take this path, this is just my own personal vision.

What is great about this book that not only does it give you suggestions at the different types of community service that can be done, but it gives you different options. Like it mentions how some people may not want to do hands on volunteer work, like working at a soup kitchen, but this does not mean that they aren't valuable. This book places equal importance in those who, for example, are board members or people who make fliers for organization or people who donate money. This book lets you know that anyone can find something to do for any organization, you just have to look. And any help you give is going to most likely be useful.

What I also liked was that it was realistic on people's expectations and what actually happens. For example, some people like working with teenagers and they want to be a hero to them. This doesn't really happen that much and some people might not even say thank you for your help. The book let's you know that and advises you to help younger kids instead because they are more prone to seeing you as a "hero." It was also realistic in the sense that it acknowledged that some people do volunteer work to enhance their resumes or other things like that. And that's perfectly ok. After all, everyone needs to do things for themselves as well. And anyway, you are still helping. Work is still being done.

I really enjoyed this book and even though I've been doing volunteer work for some time now I learned new things. I recommend this book to everyone because like I said I'm a believer in everyone helping out.