The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards

The stunning novel begins on a winter night in 1964 when a blizzard forces Dr. David Henry to deliver his own twins. His son born first,is perfectly healthy,but the doctor immediately recognizes that his daughter has Down Syndrome.For motives he tells himself are good,he makes a slit-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever.

This novel shows the perspectives of the main characters,displaying how they grow and change throughout the years. The story revolves around a secret that creates a distance between David Henry and his wife Norah Henry. When Phoebe,their biological daughter is born,David makes the decision to give her up by placing her in the hands of a nurse by the name of Caroline Gill,intending for Caroline to leave the baby at an institution he recommended. 

David lies to Norah and says the baby died due to unknown reasons. 

Caroline travels to the institution and realises how terrible the place is,so she simply takes the baby in her own care. She then falls in love with a guy named Albert Simpson. They eventually get married,living with their non-biological daughter Phoebe,causing the story to converge into two different families.It was pretty unexpected.At the start of the story it seemed the Henry family would lead a happier life and Caroline Gill would perhaps lead the opposite. It was more the other way around for them.

For more than two decades,the secret had been hidden from Norah and her son Paul. This secret kept loss and grief in the family. During the story,each main character goes through devastating issues. In the end,hope starts to appear. 

The Memory Keeper's Daughter was beautifully written and slowly thought through. It was heart-wrenching and caused a sense of the fact that people can get severely hurt in their life no matter how rich or poor they are,no matter how gorgeous or terrible their lifestyle may look-disaster is lurking in the corner ready to burst. It was an eye opener really. This novel may seem sad but there were many moments of happiness and appreciation.I couldn't put the book down,I just wanted to keep reading till the end because there was always something interesting happening in each chapter. A wonderful story,a must read. 

LOOKING FOR ALASKA by JOHN GREEN

Looking For Alaska is about young Miles Halter(Pudgy) who leaves home Florida for Alabama in order to attend Culver Creek Preparatory School,a place his dad had once went to when he was a teenager himself. At Culver Creek,Miles meets Chip Martin (Colonel),a roommate of his in the school. Miles then interacts with Alaska Young,a good friend of Chip's. Throughout the journey of his friendship with Chip and his friends,he discovers many things along the way.

The story has two parts to it,the Before and the After. The two parts indicate the times Miles had before Alaska Young had died and then the effects and outcomes of it all after she had lost her life.I find it really interesting in how John Green had continued the story majorly after Alaska's death. In most novels,the story ends just a little after an important living element of the story dies,telling the isolation or happiness it might of caused and then abruptly ends. But this story continued right on,with the Colonel,Takumi and Miles investigating reasons of her death; suicide? Accident?

Throughout the novel there is smoking,drinking,sex,hangovers,etc. When talking about such things in the book,it is realistically written.The authour doesn't try to put a cherry on top or express the reality of these things in a worse or better form,just putting it in its original truth.Even though we are looking into Miles story,we get a huge glimpse of others stories,when I say glimpse,I mean a huge glimpse.

The story looks deeply into struggles that young people can face.It teaches you that,in order to be happy,you need to be able to move on and forgive. Honestly,I think parents recommending this book to their kids would be a really smart choice.If you're young,knowledge could be gained from from this book.And no, I don't mean Historical or Math knowledge entirely,I mean 'life' knowledge. Here are just some words that might give you an idea of what the story consists of; searching,friendship,loss,last words,discovering,love,investigating,pranks.These are just some of the things that come straight across my mind when I am reminded of this novel.

A funny,compassionate and realistic book produced by a very talented authour.

Favourite quotes: 

“What is an "instant" death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.” 

“I am going to take this bucket of water and pour it on the flames of hell, and then I am going to use this torch to burn down the gates of paradise so that people will not love God for want of heaven or fear of hell, but because He is God.” 

“Alaska decided to go help Dolores with dinner. She said that it was sexist to leave the cooking to the women, but better to have good sexist food than crappy boy-prepared food.” 

RESOLUTION evolution...

I've come to notice a few things I haven't been doing for a while. Ever since last month,I stopped taking interest in reading,which is a very strange outcome for a person like me. I have the 'Premier's Reading Challenge' to complete and I'm not even half way. I've been trying so hard to stick by my resolutions,that I've lost sight of the fact- I even have a blog. You're probably thinking 'What is she going on about?' Well,I don't blog here daily,so I always assume to myself  that I don't have a blog or forget that I even have a blog at all,when indeed I do. Here's another example-If I had a home but I rarely even stayed there,instead just lived in hotels or motels-I'd then consider that 'home' of mine typically not my home at all. I hope you finally get my point of discussion. What I'm saying is that following my resolutions has kept me busy from doing the things I usually do.

Here's my 2012 resolution list: 

1. Do all your homework and assignments,returning them before their due date.

2. Take a walk to the local park once in a while.

3. Save up at least $200 or possibly more.

4. Get a Blogspot (Blogger) account. 

5. Study,study and study before the exams occur. 

6. Be more sensible in classes unless the teacher is a casual teacher. 

7. Give nice cards out as much as you can.

8. In the last few weeks of school,you can act as silly or rebellious as you want,since all the reports will be already done by then. (Technically not a resolution,but I put it in the list anyway).

For 1,I have completed all my assignments,homework and projects with effort. Instead of procrastinating till the last minute,something I would always do last year,I did each of the assigned tasks two weeks or maybe a week ahead of their due date,giving them all at the right time. However,I have this one project I have to do and I haven't even started. You see,when the year had first started,I chose both Drama and Commerce as my two selective subjects...But then Drama got cancelled because there weren't many students participating in it anymore. I then had to choose a different selective subject.I chose Cooking but the teachers had told me that there were too many people in it already. I ended up getting put in Music without much choice.I was put in quite late,so the other students had a head start of knowledge of their music category. The teacher had assigned us to do do a performance of some music sort as our assignment project. I chose to do mine solo and I didn't want to take the risk of singing and making a fool of myself,so I simply chose a piano performance for this week. I still haven't decided what song I'll be doing or even learnt to play (the-song-I-don't-know-I-will-be-playing) on piano.In other words,I haven't even practiced yet.I'll start doing that tomorrow but I can't be so guaranteed of sureness. 

The second resolution,I have only done it once so far. But hey,I wrote 'once in a while.' I'll probably take another walk to the park in about 3 months. The one I had this year wasn't quite a good experience. It didn't refresh my mind or keep me calm from the stress drowned in me. Nothing of what I expected. I went to my friends house and an hour later took a stroll to the local park in which was nearby of  my place. I came past this nursing home and saw a middle aged man staring at me. I started to walk at a past pace and took recognition of the middle aged man walking outside the nursing home area.I heard his foot steps behind me, pacing kind of slowly. I kept looking behind and I felt quite scared.There wasn't anyone else around. So I tried to look tough and confident. I went the short cut way to Lane St and once I got there,I ran as fast as I could. I looked behind again,he fortunately wasn't in sight. The funny thing is,the park was often full of people but it was the opposite this time.Next time I go there,I'm going with a friend or an adult,so a predator won't likely come to us having there being  two people who are able to battle one individual. Now that I think about it,I feel like I was being paranoid and feel that maybe the guy wasn't following me at all...But I couldn't take the risk of staying in the park,just in case is wasn't my paranoid mind speaking but commen sense speaking loudly. 

As for 3,I will start saving up in two weeks.Last year,I hadn't even made any resolutions and I found it completely easy to save up. This year however,has not committed the same ease but I'll do it in two weeks time and that I'm sure of. 

For 4,as you can really tell,I did make one.

Also 5,I have done so. Number 6 is the same answer too. Due to to school work and exams,I have completely forgotten about making cards to give out to those I love. I'm promising myself I'll do this activity as well. 

A Weight Has Been Lifted Off My Shoulders...Well Nearly Off

I haven't been online for a while. I had been focusing on doing my assignments and studying for the exams. Yesterday,was the last day of examinations. I'm glad it's finally over (for now). Even though I'm happy with the fact it's done with,I just wish I could go back in time and redo my History and Maths exams. I found it ridiculous that the History exam was only allowed to go for fourty-five minutes. There were tons of essays to write,30 multiple questions to answer and the task of deciding on true and false when it came to statements. It wasn't possible to finish it all in a minimum amount of time with such a large exam-unless I didn't read any of the questions,randomly wrote out of the blue one sentence answers and rushed without thinking.The History exam was severely easy for me,but sadly I couldn't complete it within the limited time period. However,for the Maths exam,I blame myself for not completing it. I came across this one difficult question and tried to understand it before I wrote my answer.It took me basically around four minutes to figure out the answer itself.

Because of this,I didn't get to complete the whole exam. When one of the teachers yelled out ''Pens down everyone!'' I freaked out and took a quick glimpse of the last few pages. In that instant I realised I knew how to every single thing and every single one of those questions situated on the last few pages but had no time to do any of  it. I tried to keep answering but some teacher snatched my exam paper off me. So,in simple words,I lost marks I could of gained if I had just finished both the History and Maths exam.
I get stressed,just thinking about it now.

Next week,I'll get to see my results. I'm not too fond of it at the moment. If it all goes good,I'll be jumping with joy. But if it initiates the opposite way,I will of course be quite disappointed.Although, I'll eventually sooth down-I mean,that was only the half yearly exams. I still have the full yearly exams left for this year. I can try to work better and faster on that one instead of fussing about the 'half yearly' I did this week.

To Concour on a New Hobby 

Most of the time,I see young teenagers buying expensive professional cameras and then claim to call themselves 'photographers'. Just because you're rich enough to afford a good camera and take pictures with that certain camera,doesn't really make you a photographer. Now,every person I know in school who has a Nikon or Canon or even Polaroid always seem to call themselves photographers. I only consider you a proper photographer if you're able to take a decent or good picture with just an ordinary camera. I only call you a talented photographer if you're able to see what angles,lightings,shadows and effects you need to use during the activity of  taking photos to make an image wonderful.Photography isn't just taking pictures or capturing random things,it's an art form. Having knowledge on this topic when taking a picture will make the image more meaningful.

I want to do photography as a hobby but I'm taking small steps instead of doing what the other students at my school do. I'm trying to discover unique ways to make an image more special,what techniques I need to use in order to make an image worth it and what precautions to take when doing so to make the image brilliant and outstanding. I'm trying to experiment with my pictures. I also try to find themes suitable for an image whenever I take one. For example,making an image black and white to make it seem more classy or zooming into an object,so you can show what the main factor of the image is. These are the main things I pay attention on when taking pictures with my bad quality camera.

I'm trying to experience more genre's of photography like landscape,still life,buildings,etc.

At the moment,I really want to get a professional camera and improve my skills.I'll try to save a bit of money in order to buy it. Of course, I won't be like those individuals who ramble on about being a photographer when they're no where near as good as one,but still ramble on about it because they have a good quality camera in which they still manage to take average looking pictures with even though they spent near $1000 for that sophisticated camera. 

Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman 

Right now,there is competition between the two films. Mirror Mirror being a comedy casting a fun type of mood displayed in its trailer, while Snow White and the Huntsman represents the tale itself  in a darker form. I've watched trailers of both the films but haven't exactly watched any of the two movies yet. In the Mirror Mirror trailer,Snow White and basically the actress who in which plays her attracts me to this film.I also happen to enjoy anything funny and hilarious.


For Snow White and the Huntsman,the evil queen catches my attention-I guess Charlize Theron takes her acting skills to a  new territory in this movie. Don't get me wrong here,both films look brilliant. But since I'm only judging by their trailers,Snow White and the Huntsman in my opinion wins. It really gets to me as an individual and makes me feel all sorts of emotions whether it's excitement or terror.
When I was watching the trailer of the film,to my disappointment I saw Kristen Stewart as Snow White in it-but maybe I shouldn't judge her due to Twilight,she might do brilliantly in this film.

Besides,I absolutely love it when such films like Cinderella,Alice in Wonderland and Beauty and the Beast are shown in their original genre style.You see,when the authors of these stories wrote these fairy tales,their stories were originally dark and lucid-not bright and happy-in which case Disney made it out to be.

What's with everyone comparing The Hunger Games to Twilight?

Ever since people had found out it was tranforming into a film,the comparisons between Twilight and The Hunger Games collided. The media made The Hunger Games look like something it was completely not. The only similarities I see between Twilight and The Hunger Games is the fact they both consist of some sort of love triangle. Overall,Twilight is nothing like this brilliant series.In The Hunger Games series,It's more than just Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen.It's basically about survival and death. Tragedy and fast pace action. The novels of this series keep you feeling intense and you simply can't put any of novels down.The main characters are inspirational.Katniss is a strong and smart individual,she's been through a lot but that's only made her a much stronger person.Katniss actually grows as a character throughout the books.Many young girls can learn from Katniss.And Peeta Mellark,I can't forgot about him. He is the most caring person out there. Even though he isn't as strengthful as Katniss..Or many others,he still tries his best.He still tries to get physical.No matter what,he still manages to try. Now,thats called dedication. As far as I can tell,not even the good guys in Twilight were that inspirational. 


Before you start comparing The Hunger Games with Twilight,actually read The Hunger Games series before you do so. There might be a lot of things you misjudged.