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aliciaclarereads's Reviews (1.25k)
When the books were handed out to my AP Lit class, everyone predicted that this book would be just another Pride and Prejudice. (Which hurt considering how much I adore Pride and Prejudice). But this i very far from Jane Austen's satire. It's a story of two despicable human beings that are completely enraptured with this passion and obsession. I don't fancy Heathcliff in the slightest. He's a sorry excuse for a man, but quite an excellent character to read about. Honestly, I jump to this book's defense so much when we hold class discussions. It's not pretentious and boring. It's captivating and exciting. The pace of this book is far better than any school assigned book I've read, especially considering we wrapped up Crime and Punishment about a month ago. Talk about your pretentious boring tale.
A heart warming love story of a boy, Rodya/Rodiom Romanovitch/Raskolnikov, a poor college student, and a girl, Sonia/Sonya/Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, from a tough back ground who will do anything to protect her little siblings, that overcome the odds heartless pawnbrokers, scheming soon-to-be in laws, and suspicious police detectives and fall in love and promise to wait for one another.
That or a batshit Russian believes he's Napolean and kills people then spends the rest of the book randomly yelling and constantly falling asleep while trying to avoid his guilt and some prostitute falls in love with him in the end.
But the first one sounds nicer.
That or a batshit Russian believes he's Napolean and kills people then spends the rest of the book randomly yelling and constantly falling asleep while trying to avoid his guilt and some prostitute falls in love with him in the end.
But the first one sounds nicer.
Despite everyone in my AP Lit class hating on Shakespeare, I loved this play. Definitely my favorite Shakespeare play I have read.
The thing you need to remember about Shakespeare is he's a poet. That's truly what he is. It's how he personally referred to himself. He didn't write any novels. Calling Hamlet a novel is ridiculous and will get you b-slapped by myself or my teacher. You can't just sit down and read Hamlet to appreciate it. You need to imagine the actors. You need to watch the film versions (because one does not suffice, considering they are all rather different). Most importantly, you need to see it on stage. That's what Hamlet was written for. It was written so that people could come and sit in the local theatre and watch people tell stories on the stage. That is the purpose to the plays Shakespeare wrote.
You see, we had a discussion in class about whether or not Ophelia is a weak character. Everyone in my class kept calling her a weak female who just did what her father told. If you read the words, yeah you could interpret her that way. But Shakespeare just wrote those lines. How it's performed is truly dependent on the actress (well actor in Shakespearean times). I guess I was able to view it that way, since the stage is my second home.
I just have a lot of feelings about this play and Shakespeare in general.
The thing you need to remember about Shakespeare is he's a poet. That's truly what he is. It's how he personally referred to himself. He didn't write any novels. Calling Hamlet a novel is ridiculous and will get you b-slapped by myself or my teacher. You can't just sit down and read Hamlet to appreciate it. You need to imagine the actors. You need to watch the film versions (because one does not suffice, considering they are all rather different). Most importantly, you need to see it on stage. That's what Hamlet was written for. It was written so that people could come and sit in the local theatre and watch people tell stories on the stage. That is the purpose to the plays Shakespeare wrote.
You see, we had a discussion in class about whether or not Ophelia is a weak character. Everyone in my class kept calling her a weak female who just did what her father told. If you read the words, yeah you could interpret her that way. But Shakespeare just wrote those lines. How it's performed is truly dependent on the actress (well actor in Shakespearean times). I guess I was able to view it that way, since the stage is my second home.
I just have a lot of feelings about this play and Shakespeare in general.
The only work I've ever read of Steinbeck before is [b:The Pearl|5308|The Pearl|John Steinbeck|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309212365s/5308.jpg|195832], which in a word was torture. So needless to say I did not want to read 600 pages worth of Steinbeck. But he isn't a bad writer. In fact he's an incredible writer. Something that I didn't realize back in eighth grade. It's just his plots... Well he always makes the worst that could happen, happen. And it's really depressing.
The book is setup that you know it's not going to be a happy read. The Joads are poor farmers from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. They're kicked off their farms and they travel to California in search of jobs. Yet California is not the land of milk and honey as they thought. Jobs are scarce, money is scarcer and slowly and slowly their family keeps falling apart. Typically when this is the plot of a novel, I am not inclined to read it.
However, there were certain parts of the book that I really liked. Every other chapter was written vaguely talking about all the migrant farmers and their experience as a whole, which reminds you that even though the Joads aren't real, there were actually people who experienced that poverty. Plus the writing was really beautiful in those chapters.
Then, the reason I gave this book a three rather than a two, was the character Ma. The mother of the family, she's actually an incredibly strongly written female character. She acts as emotional support to the whole family, but she eventually turns into the leader of the family. She's the one who gets them into California and keeps the remaining family together through all the trouble they face. Her character was so inspiring and I loved the way she was written. She could have been like any other mother character who's just their and the other characters just sort of take advantage of. Ala the mother in [b:Native Son|15622|Native Son|Richard Wright|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166676407s/15622.jpg|3159084] who was completely irritating and I wanted to punch her. I mean I liked her character but when I started writing my essay, I just went off on a complete tangent that made me realize I didn't altogether hate the book. I didn't love it, but it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.
The book is setup that you know it's not going to be a happy read. The Joads are poor farmers from Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl. They're kicked off their farms and they travel to California in search of jobs. Yet California is not the land of milk and honey as they thought. Jobs are scarce, money is scarcer and slowly and slowly their family keeps falling apart. Typically when this is the plot of a novel, I am not inclined to read it.
However, there were certain parts of the book that I really liked. Every other chapter was written vaguely talking about all the migrant farmers and their experience as a whole, which reminds you that even though the Joads aren't real, there were actually people who experienced that poverty. Plus the writing was really beautiful in those chapters.
Then, the reason I gave this book a three rather than a two, was the character Ma. The mother of the family, she's actually an incredibly strongly written female character. She acts as emotional support to the whole family, but she eventually turns into the leader of the family. She's the one who gets them into California and keeps the remaining family together through all the trouble they face. Her character was so inspiring and I loved the way she was written. She could have been like any other mother character who's just their and the other characters just sort of take advantage of. Ala the mother in [b:Native Son|15622|Native Son|Richard Wright|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166676407s/15622.jpg|3159084] who was completely irritating and I wanted to punch her. I mean I liked her character but when I started writing my essay, I just went off on a complete tangent that made me realize I didn't altogether hate the book. I didn't love it, but it wasn't as bad as I had originally thought.