The Reapers are the Angels: Video Review

To conclude my reading of Alden Bell's The Reapers are the Angels, I've made a short review of the book.  It talks about a lot of the things I covered in previous posts, focusing mainly on Temple's growth as a character.  I hope you enjoy, and welcome to SUMMER (after Friday)!

Warm Bodies: First Impressions

After finishing The Reapers are the Angels, I began another piece of zombie literature.  Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion is told through the eyes of "R," a zombie who spends his time groaning and riding escalators up and down in the post-apocalyptic world in which he exists.  Unlike in the last book I read, zombies have thoughts.  They're primitive, but they're thoughts nonetheless.  Zombies are more than just instinctual creatures -- they can even mumble a few syllables at a time.

Isaac Marion

R, unlike many of his walking dead comrades, has more feeling.  He knows there is more to life than eating people, and he likes to relive their lives by eating their brains.  While hunting, he ate some of the brain of a young guy, Perry, and through that, he learned about his relationship with another girl nearby, Julie.  He takes a liking to both the memories he sees when he eats the brain and the girl, much to the confusion of his zombie community.

Already, though the basics of zombie existence (thoughts, emotions, etc.) are different, a reoccurring symbol has appeared -- airplanes.  R's community lives in an old, abandoned airport, and his home is a 747 plane.  In one of Perry's memories, he hears Julie say, "I miss airplanes... That muffled thunder in the distance, those white lines... the way they sliced across the sky and made designs in the blue?  My mom used to say it looked like Etch A Sketch.  It was so beautiful."  (p. 26)  This could represent, like in The Reapers are the Angels,  freedom.  The airplanes in which the zombies live can't fly, and without flight, airplanes aren't worth much.  Julie describes missing airplanes, as if she misses the freedom before the zombie apocalypse.

So far, I really like it.  It's funny -- R has a sharp sense of humor -- and the writing is entertaining and moves quickly.  I look forward to reading more.

A Book Trailer for The Secret Life of Bees

The follwing is a a homemade trailer for Sue Monk Kidd's bestseller that I made.  I chose this book because I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot from doing so.  Hope you enjoy!

The Reapers are the Angels: Finished

I recently finished Alden Bell's The Reapers are the Angels, my first venture into apocalyptic novels.  More specifically, it was my first venture into apocalyptic zombie novels.  The book doesn't allow zombies and their violence to play a big role, rather, the book instead focuses on emotional and personal stories of its human characters.  Overall, I really enjoyed it, though, like any book, it has a few minor faults.

As I described in an earlier post, the struggle of the main character, Temple, is to overcome the evilness that she believes resides within her.  I find this a very interesting and somewhat unique, but at times, I think Bell goes too far with it.  I understand that it's all part of her journey, but sometimes I think Temple's self-hatred gets too repetitive.  By no means does that ruin the book -- it doesn't come close -- but it did get a bit annoying, especially towards the end.  Also, it didn't seem like there was a real gradual change in Temple.  She sort of came to an understanding in the last thirty pages or so, when we finally heard what happened to Malcolm and when she spoke to Moses.

Not to dwell on the negatives, but I think Moses' motivation was not totally clear.  Obviously, he wanted to avenge his brother's death, but with relationship he developed with Temple over the course of the book, I thought he might have a change in heart, too.  Then, at the end, I wasn't clear why he took Maury up to Niagara Falls.  Wasn't that Temple's dream?  Maybe I just missed something, but Moses wasn't totally clear for me.

I'm a very critical person, so don't get the wrong idea -- The Reapers are the Angels is a very good book.  Though sometimes too overbearing (sometimes seeming like he's writing to show off rather than tell a story), Bell's writing is awesome.  The characters seem genuine, and they stay in character all the time.  Temple's journey is fascinating, and I'm happy to have, in a way, gone along with her and Maury.  This is a great book for summer, and I'd recommend it to anybody looking for a fun, adventurous book.

How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

While we may be taking our zombie literature lightly, there are people out there who believe the events of books like The Reapers are the Angels and Warm Bodies might actually happen. This video is of a man who's prepared for a real zombie apocalypse, though National Geographic prepared it more as a metaphor for any kind of world disaster. It's both entertaining and mildly serious -- it's not a bad idea, really.

I am the Messenger

Markus Zusak

Generally, I don't have just one favorite of anything -- if somebody asks me my favorite color, I might say "shades of blue, red, or green," and my favorite show would be "The Office, Glee, or Big Love."  However, if asked my favorite author, I'd safely say Markus Zusak.  He's produced books by the age of 30 like my possibly all-time favorite, The Book Thief, and another of my top books, I am the Messenger.

A lot of people have heard and read The Book Thief, and for good reason.  My class read it last year, and it quickly became one of everybody's favorite books.  The next summer I read another, less-known book by Zusak called I am the Messenger.

Ed Kennedy, an underage cabby, is incurably in love with his best friend, Audrey.  His life is filled with playing cards with his friends, and essentially Ed's a bum.  One day while at the bank with his friend, Marv, a gunman held up the bank.  They were worried more about the possibility of getting another parking ticket in the fifteen-minute parking zone outside.  Zusak immediatly sets up a feeling that these guys are not the most successful people out there -- Ed describes Marv's car as not even worth the parking ticket.

After escaping the bank, Ed begins to receive aces in he mail.  The first one, the ace of diamonds, gives three addresses and times:

45 Edgar Street, midnight

13 Harrison Avenue, 6pm

6 Macedoni Street, 5:30 am

Ed decides to go to each one, and in the process he stops a woman from being raped every night, comforts an old lady missing her husband, and helps a teenage girl gain confidence and do well in life.  The source of the card is still unknown, but cards continue to come into Ed's possession, next the clubs, followed the ace of spades and then of hearts.  Ed continues to help people, to deliver messages of inspiration and hope to different people the cards bring him to.

The cards lead him to repair relationships with his friends, including Audrey.  Finally, his own adress is written on a joker that comes in the mail.  Ed realizes that he is not the messenger, but the message.  He finds out that the person sending these cards was the bank robber, a man with a connection to Ed's father.  It's not totally clear, but I got the idea that somebody had been controlling Ed's life just to prove that somebody as ordinary as him could be the "message" -- he instructed the man to rape the woman every night, and he even killed Ed's father.

The ending was a bit fuzzy to me, but everything else -- the self-discovery, the small victories, and the helped lives -- really make for a good book.  The writing is really interesting.  There is profanity, but never gratuitous, and Zusak's use of language as is facinating.  It's simple and to the point, but still descriptive and very engaging.  I'd recommend I am the Messenger to anybody who likes mystery and adventure.

Harry Potter

The end is approaching -- the final movie, I mean.  It's difficult to call myself a true fan of J.K. Rowling's masterpieces when I never actually read the books until the summer after the fifth movie was released.  After that, I read the first six books in two weeks during summer break.  I was obsessed, but with the coming of the next school year, my Harry Potter fixation halted.

However, it embarrasses me to say that, after speeding through the first six, I only made it half-way through the seventh.  I read up until the break between part 1 and part 2 of the movie version, and I'm just now getting around to finally finishing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  I suppose that means I can't call myself a true fan, but I can definitely say that I am totally in love with the series.

Poster for the Final Movie

Before reading and watching the magic of Harry Potter, I wasn't much of a fantasy fan.  I can't say they changed me into a fantasy fanatic, because Harry Potter is still the only series or single fantasy book that I've thoroughly enjoyed.

So if there is anybody out there who hasn't read Harry Potter, I am not suggesting but telling you to read these books.  I'm sure most of you know or at least have heard of the plot, but in short, Harry Potter, a boy born a wizard, must overcome a destiny he shares with Lord Voldemort, the evil wizard who killed his parents when he was an infant.  Along with friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, Harry learns magic and explores the dangers of the wizard world at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  J.K. Rowling's writing is superb -- entertainingly funny dialog, creative names and creatures, amazing friendships, and a staggering imagination.  You feel like another member of the triad, just following along.  By now, I know the characters and their personality, and I genuinely worry and feel happy for them, even after I remind myself that it's just a book.

My favorite book of the series is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth in the series.  A wizard competition called the Tri-Wizard Cup is held at Hogwarts, and, of course, Harry is selected to represent Hogwarts even though he is technically too young. I'm a competitive person, and I really like the idea of a magical tournament.

Overall, the Harry Potter series is a must-read.  Even if you generally don't like fantasy books, read these.  I literally couldn't put them down.  There's hype over them for a reason.