The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Rated: 5 stars

Read: June 23, 2020

Eight years in between readings I think, meant to be perhaps because I learned more in the ensuing years. Had accumulated more backstory of the war through several mediums, most significantly after having read The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, plus several fictions like Eye of the Needle by Ken Follet to more domestic locals in La’s Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith. Not least of which was my visit to Dover Castle, the tunnel tour.

It was heartbreak all over again, of course. It was damnation and redemption all in one told by the guy we all heard of, the one we’ll all have the chance to meet. The writing style took some getting used to then and even a little still now but I find I liked it because the use of similes, metaphors, and a technique I can’t quite pin down, they made paintings of scenes.

At the beginning of the book, the clinging, filthy, and bruised girl was in many ways similar to the end. She was still filthier, and battered and clung still to what she could. But she was different too.

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Book Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Genre: Young Adult, Fiction

10th Ed.: Jan 13, 2015, Penguin Random House

1st Ed.: March 3, 2005, Dutton Children’s Books

Read: November 2018 (first read in 2015)

Rated it: 3.5 stars 

What was okay for me:

1. Pudge. I can’t say I particularly too much for the guy. I mean, he’s smart and likable enough, sure. He can be exasperating, I’d kick his ass if I could. Self-centered but not in a conventional or conspicuous way. By the end of the book, however, he rose a few rungs in my esteem, not that he’d give a shit but whatever.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Hogwarts Library) by Newt Scamander, J.K. Rowling

 

Rated it: 4.5 stars

Read: December 2017

Read count: 2

See my review for The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The first time I read this it was a copy of my cousins, three years ago when I was visiting in England. A slim red paperback edition with Harry’s scribbles which I’d thoroughly enjoyed. I believe that being on the island, while not in Scotland where Hogwarts is, added more to the sublime atmosphere. At the time this was one of the three books of the Hogwarts Library Collection that I did not have.

Ah, but I remedied that recently and now I have in my possession the edition above published just last year. A gorgeous hardcover, smooth as a baby’s bum and has an illustration of a Runespoor, the three-headed serpent, on the back cover.

While sans scribbles it has a forward by the man himself, Newt Scamander, who briefly mentioned on the incidents in the movie adaptation of Fantastic Beasts which in my opinion was a brilliant touch for those of us who have watched the movie, fostering a sense of familiarity.

The introduction states what is considered a Being and a Beast and the controversies that have challenged and modified the definitions over the years; and how they’ve secretly coexisted with muggle-kind.