Unbroken (The Young Adult Adaptation) by Laura Hillenbrand (Non-Fiction)

Why read non-fiction? Because it's real and real is interesting! This book is a perfect example of that. Non-fiction is not synonymous with a textbook. Laura Hillenbrand makes that apparent as she takes history and weaves it into a novel, a story, an adventure. And we get to come along for the ride via Louie Zamperini. We get to learn about other aspects of history with Louie as the line pulling us back to the center of the story. I personally learned a lot of facts (real, true, historical facts) about World War II that I didn't know through the telling of Louie's life. Louie's story was both hard and encouraging to read, more so than most stories I've ever read. Why you may ask? BECAUSE IT WAS REAL. The hard stuff is harder to read. The encouraging stuff is more encouraging to read. When you can say to yourself, "Wow this really happened to this guy?" it leaves you seriously considering your own life and how you would have handled yourself in those exact same situations. Reading non-fiction is an incredible opportunity to get in touch with the past in a more exciting way than in a classroom. Non-fiction novels bring these topics to life! Like an exhibit in a museum but it's in your hands, at your fingertips where your mind is given all the details to run rampant recreating history, possibly your history. I loved reading about Louie's life and the life of those he encountered. Humans constantly contemplate and try to test our limits, whether in physical, mental or emotional ways. I mean, there are literally TV shows all about testing how much humans can endure (e.g. Survivor or the once so popular Fear Factor) and movies displaying the valiant resilience of our race. These works of non-fiction bring to life those stories of survival, resilience and hope that actually happened! Real life heroes and conquerors who beat the odds and achieved what so many works of fiction fantasize about.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (Discovery)

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende explores the incredible world of Fantastica and how the shy, awkward boy Bastian Balthazar Bux fits into this world. While running away from bullies Bastian runs into a bookstore where he is mesmerized by an ornate book with two intertwining snakes on the front called The Neverending Story. Feeling a connection to the book, on an impulse, Bastian steals it and hides in the attic of his school where he unsuspectingly discovers a world and a mission in another world that will inadvertently change his life in the human world too. As Bastian reads this book he reflects on his own life compared to the characters he begins to bond with as he reads. He sees his life through a narrow lens, only viewing himself the way other people do. It never even crosses his mind that there is value in who he is. Soon he becomes a part of the story. A real character in this story, alongside the characters he was recently huddled in an attic reading about. He also finds his appearance is not only expected but eagerly anticipated as he holds the power to save this world from ruin. He discovers he is the hero he has always wished to become and can be the way he has always wanted to be (or is it more the way he thinks everyone else wanted him to be?). However, these changes come at a cost. Bastian loses a memory for every "wish" he makes to change himself. This journey continues, with twists and turns as Bastian creates his new self but finds that in the process brings more harm than good to himself and Fantastica. In the end Bastian loses all of his memories of his former self and needs his new friends to remind him of who he truly is to gain access to the Waters of Life and return to his world. The Waters of Life instruct Bastian that he must give up all the gifts he had been given in Fantastica to return to his world. In the moments walking to the waters the gifts fall away and Bastian is unsure and scared. But when he jumps into the waters of life he is "newborn" and he discovered in those moments that he was "now the very person he wanted to be. If he had been free to choose, he would have chosen to be no one else." By becoming the thing he thought he wanted to be and losing himself, Bastian discovered that he, as himself, is valuable and that there is nothing greater than discovering who you really are. When Bastian returns to the human world, confident in who he is as he is, he finds that the cure to the sad state of affairs that his life was before was himself! All he needed was to be him. A Dr. Seuss quote comes to mind that I think perfectly describes what Bastian discovers to be true: "Today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no one around who is youer than you."

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud (Good/Evil)

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud delves into the world of magic in London, England and focuses on a boy names Nathaniel. Nathaniel was given to the state, in exchange for a large sum of money, to become a magicians apprentice. This book frequently blurs the lines between good and evil. Nathaniel who definitely starts out as a "good" boy who is eager to learn and thirsts for knowledge and to please his master, Underwood. However, from an early age Nathaniel is humiliated and subjected to treatment that hardens him towards his master and leads him to seek revenge on a famous magician named Simon Lovelace. In a wild series of events Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, a powerful two thousand year old djinn, fates become intertwined as they battle for revenge against the relentless and remorseless evil of Simon Lovelace. The interesting thing about this book is how the lines between good and evil, within Nathaniel especially, are constantly shifting. His thirst for revenge and high opinion of himself often lead him to do treacherous things that lead to deadly consequences for those around him (the firing of his favorite tutor, the death of his master and his wife, who was the only person the consistently care for and future Nathaniel, etc). Bartimaeus also has these lines blurred a lot as he, who claims to hate magicians and their slavery of his kind with everything in his being and actually tries to sabotage and harm them, at the end of the book exhibits a compassion and hope for his young master, Nathaniel. These lines are constantly blurred with majority of the characters as they make decisions throughout the book. This book also emphasizes the consequences of actions, both good and evil. Simon Lovelace encounters a brutal end to his life as a result of his ambition and the evil decisions he makes out of that desire. Nathaniel experiences redemption out of his bad decisions and his thirst for knowledge that often led to his evil desires behind his decisions. An interesting element of this book is that women in the book are not portrayed as evil but highly benevolent. Even Amanda, Lovelaces girlfriend who makes some questionable decisions aiding his evil, in the end is portrayed as good. Not sure exactly what this means but I found it a worthy observation and thing to think about. However, this book was a fun, more traditional look at good and evil (due to the portrayal more or less of a good guy and a bad guy and the elements of magic make it feel more fictitious) but also explores how these lines are not always black and white. These lines can be blurred and it explores the good and evil that exists within each of us and that each of us is capable of.

The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau (Deception book)

In all honesty I wasn't a huge fan of this book. It caught my eye because it seemed like it was along the lines of the Hunger Games and Divergent series...which was true. A little too much along those lines for my liking, but with less character development. The main character, Cia Vale, is a strong female protagonist (like in Hunger Games and Divergent) who lives in a Distopian society born out of a post nuclear war America. Charbonneau definitely created a hybrid of the two worlds from Hunger Games and Divergent, but she emphasizes the theme of deception throughout. The testing (per the title of the book) is seemingly an aptitude test that students qualify for during their years of schooling in their colonies. However, this testing is much more sinister than members of the colonies know. This is the first layer of deception that Cia uncovers. From there she goes on to unexpectedly fight for her life over and over again during these tests. The entire premise of the book is based on the words her father, a former testing candidate who "passed" the testing, gave her before she left: "Cia, trust no one." During the next months Cia questions everything around her, wondering if anything can be trusted at face value. More layers of deception are uncovered as secret cameras are found watching their every move, the tests become more deadly and countless testing candidates turn out to not be what they seem as sabotage and murder run rampant through the tests. In the end the final deception comes in the form of a memory wipe, erasing all knowledge of the weeks spent in the testing and all that happened within. Luckily for Cia she was smart enough to keep a digital record of the happenings during the testing which she found after the memory swipe revealing the greatest deception of them all. Cia lives in a society where nothing is what it seems and few find this out and live to tell about it. It was hard reading a book where you felt like you couldn't even trust the characters for fear you would be deceived as well (since this happened often). The only consolation was that since the character development did not, I feel, create much depth in the characters, the deception and betrayal was not felt as deeply by me, the reader, as it could have been. Though the unoriginality of this book threw me off, I still enjoyed the imagination behind the plot and the simple thread of deception that is found throughout the story. It helps, at least, tie everything together to be cohesive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3DvdkO-GYc
This is a book trailer for The Testing that I think gives a good picture of the book but does not give too much away that happens within the movie. I believe this will help people decide whether they would want to read this book or not, based on a portrayal and opinion other than my own.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (Love book)

Many people in the course of two weeks all separately told me to read this book. I'd heard of it before and thought it sounded okay. But I was not about to ignore all the prodding to read it. Felt like it was meant to bee (get it?) when my best friend shoved her copy of this book into my hands and said "You're reading this. No is not an option. This book will speak to you like it spoke to me." And per usual, she was right. The Secret Life of Bees is a beautiful representation of love, what it is and the many forms it takes. Lily, the main character, grows up with a father who seemingly hates her and with the knowledge that she accidentally shot and killed her mother when she was four. There it is right in the first chapter. The question of love hangs heavy in Lily's heart. She dreams about her mothers love and feels the absence of it in her father, T. Ray, which is where the adventure begins. Set in the midst of the civil rights movement, the concepts of love are challenged alongside the concepts of color. And most of all the love of a mother is the thickest theme throughout this novel. Lily finds that love holds no bonds and it covers a multitude of sins. It does not have a color or a gender or a face, because it is all of these things. Running away with her black nanny Rosaleen to a place she believes her mother once lived, Lily goes in search of love. What does she find? A trio of black bee keeping sisters named after the summer months, May, June and August. What else does she find? Love. As pure and sweet as the honey the sisters make. She also gets a chance to the see the dimensions of love in all its beauty and confusion. She sees how feeling the weight of the world can drive someone to suicide and how the ones who love us grieve when we are gone. She sees the hopeless love of a man for a woman who loves him back but is terrified of being hurt. She experiences love of her own for August, who becomes like her mother, and romantic love for Zach, the boy who helps August keep the bees. She sees a love for religion like she's never seen before in the worship of Mother Mary (and her statue in the living room) that the sisters invented. A love for creation. Love for hard work. Love through pain. Love in joy. Tough love. And even confusing love, in the act of her father giving her up. You name it Lily experienced it in her time as a runaway at the Boatwright household. Her inexperience with love and lack of it at home makes it hard to wrap her mind around the concept that love is multidimensional and while different for everyone, is also the same. It is not black and white (literally and figuratively). In the end it all boils down to Lily's search for motherly love and what that means. She finds that motherly love needs no blood ties. It comes from inside of us, as all love does. It comes from our understanding that we are loved beyond all we can imagine and from that we love those around us. Lily's closing thoughts sum it up nicely, "...I stood in the driveway with small rocks and clumps of dirt around my feet and looked back at the porch. And there they were. All these mothers. I have more mothers than eight girls off the street. They are the moons shining over me." She found the power of motherly love in herself, religion, loss and the 8 black women who stood for her and fought for her out of love. I especially enjoyed how the author left the end with some mystery still. She did not explain everything, just as love does not explain everything. But having and recognizing love within ourselves and our lives changes everything.

Original photo by Brogan James c. all rights reserved

This photo is simple and has honey as the focus because honey is the metaphor for love that exists throughout this book. At the beginning it is the main focused, used for everything, "the cure all", sticky, covers everything, takes many forms and has many uses. Then as Lily begins to find the true love hidden behind and within the honey and the making of honey and "the secret life of bees" the purity, rawness and sweetness of honey is no longer found in honey but is found in the love she finds at the Boatwright's house.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien (Sense of Self Book)

For years I've wandered what all the excitement is about over J.R.R Tolkien's The Hobbit. Don't get me wrong, I love all the Lord of the Rings movies. Really love them. A lot. And I am an avid reader, enjoying the type of fantasy and wonder offered in a series like this. But several times I sat down and began to read, feeling no connection or even grabbing effect from the first few pages. So, I would put the book down and try again later. This time, however, I was hooked. I loved it from the first word. Page 1 got me and took me on an adventure right along with the scared senseless (and selfless) Bilbo Baggins, the little hobbit who was conflicted within himself about which "part" of himself to follow that he nearly missed the adventure that showed him who he was. I was taken on a wild ride through different lands, met innumerable amounts of creatures (both pleasant and vile), saved villages, made harrowing escapes, solved riddles, slayed dragons and then went back again to the sweet, calm, quiet life of The Shire. What grabbed me this time was the character of Bilbo himself. A small creature who liked his safe, expected, comfortable life was thrown into the fire and found he never really knew himself at all. I love the way this book, in it's unique way, mirrors how we find ourselves in life. It is never an easy process. We are put through the ringer. We get burned. We want to go home to the familiarity and comfort there. But that is how people remain stagnant. No growth happens out of the comfortable. Only more comfort and laziness does. Tolkien here shows us that when adventure and an old friend show up on your door step, ask for help and demand you take an extraordinary adventure with them that you do it! Bilbo never would have found himself if he did not run out the door that morning after a pack of crazy dwarves hell bent of taking back their treasure. Bilbo transformed from a regular hobbit into the unique person he was all along inside through this adventure. And though it was hard, he understood himself and his capabilities better because he finally put them to the test and came out on the other side. When Bilbo returned to his Hobbit hole, though it was all the same, everything was also different because he himself was different. While finding treasure, he found himself. And so did everyone else! Bilbo goes through a massive transformation from beginning to end and has the benefit of retracing his steps to get a chance to reflect on all the change he had gone through. Bilbo found that it was all about the journey itself and what he took away from that. I think that might be why he entitles his book/life story "There and Back Again: A Hobbit's Tale" rather than something like "How a Small Burglar made a Big Difference in Slaying A Dragon". He realized it was all about the journey. About getting there and back again because in doing so he found himself. It's a hobbit's tale. It's Bilbo's tale. Because it is him that truly made it back again.

Original photo by Brogan James c. all rights reserved

This photo represents some of the essence of hobbits in the black and mild (representing a pipe and pipe tobacco) with a burning candle (tobacco scented) that represents the comfort of Bilbo's life and also the refining effect fire (through the adventure to slay the dragon) had on helping him discover who he really was.

Everyday by David Levithan (Hero)

An emotional roller coaster that is suspenseful in it's own way. With a consistent inconsistency, like the main character, you felt each chapter in the book the way A felt everyday. Everyday: a book about a person who identifies itself by the self proclaimed name 'A' and wakes up everyday, without fail, in a new body. Then one day...A falls in love. Fell hard. Couldn't get back up. So everyday became her: Rhiannon. Time and distance began to restructure itself around how far he was from her. As a central theme this book really challenges the ideas of love, identity and heroism in a way never done before. The main character, A, who does not identify as either male or female drifts between bodies exploring the concept of identity solely being based on the mind and personality and not the body that accompanies it. Levithan also explores the concept of an identity not matching the body it is in. He also explores the concept of love transcending the body and the simple nuances associated with "love" like waking up next to the person you love, a task that is impossible for A (or seemingly impossible). Levithan introduces a variety of characters through the bodies A inhabits and challenges people's ability to be truly in love with the inside, separating this love from the shell it resides in. However, the importance and necessity of the body is not totally neglected. It is a concept that is explored and challenges the way people think, which I think all books should do and this book does incredibly well. Lastly Heroism. A does not seem like a hero at first. Though he is highly disciplined he does not display many heroic qualities that traditional heroes possess. In the end though A turns out to be a quiet hero, slipping into the shadows as he slips into a new body each night. He displays this through self sacrifice and a different kind of love, true love, love that is willing to let go knowing that is what's best. He gives up his personal happiness, his chance at a life over destroying another life to take it's place. Even more than that he gives the life he wants and the girl he loves to, Alexander, the one he could have destroyed without him even knowing. Then he runs to give that love space to grow. And that is an everyday act of love and heroism.

Original project and photo by Brogan James c. all rights reserved

This photo is of a collage I made representing what this book meant to me. It is representative of how A does not have his own face but the only two things he takes with him day to day are his brain (where the arrows are coming from) and Rhiannon. 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Coming of Age)

I enjoyed this book much more than anticipated. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian is written in a way that actually feels just like a diary. The “entries” or chapters are not written on a day to day basis but demonstrate the real time gaps that may exist in a freshman boy’s diary anyway. The pictures within, drawn by the main character and narrator Junior (as he is known on the Indian reservation he lives on) or Arnold (his official birth name that he is called by his white teachers and classmates) were a fun addition to the text which kept the subject matter light and reminded you of the narrators age and quirky nature. Junior is a boy who is trying to find his way in the world, not just the Indian reservation he lives on, but is not willing to compromise who he is in order to fit in. He is willing to change in ways that compliment the person he knows he is on the inside, but he is not trying to be someone or something that he is not. Junior endures ridicule and trials before and after he becomes a "part-time Indian" but he sees these challenges as a part of life and an ability to live into the warrior way he wants to emulate. I was impressed with Alexie’s ability to weave tragic life events and a freshman boys feelings of being misunderstood in two worlds into a light hearted format. I especially liked how Alexie seamlessly and very subtly wove the worlds of the Indians and the White people together through Arnold or Junior’s constant striving to follow the ways of a warrior within a white world. I also enjoyed that the book did not end with a happily ever after ending yet it still had heart-warming resolution and reconciliation of the brokenness that ran as a theme through the entire book.

Photo by Brogan James c. all rights reserved