A summary and review of the Perks of being a Wallflower

Spoiler Alert!

When I first read The Perks of Being a Wallflower in 8^th grade I was immediately captured by its text. I had just finished Go Ask Alice. I soon learned that reading diary format was my favorite in literature, it felt real to me and I was more able to lose myself in the writings.

            When I read it for the first time my age was appropriate for the age of the main character Charlie. He was a freshman in high school. I would not necessarily say that the book’s content was appropriate for an 8^th grader, but for a mature student, like myself, it is an incredible read.

           The books starts out like Holden Caulfield’s writing in The Catcher in the Rye, another one of my favorite books, the character Charlie is looking for a friend to confide in so he starts this diary of his freshman year in high school, the reader learns there is some mystery to the character. We the readers learn in the second page that his best friend committed suicide. Charlie has just come back from an institution and he is getting ready for his first day of high school.

            He has no friends and he can’t even count on his sister to sit with him at lunch. He makes a friend on his first day of school, his English teacher. His teacher gives him some highly recognizable books to read during the school year. 

           While he was attending a school football game, he met Patrick and Sam his soon to be best friends who are also seniors. They take him under their wing and show him the other side of high school, parties, sex, drugs, rock’ n’ roll, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

            He dates Mary Elizabeth, Sam’s friend, but Charlie always pined for Sam. The friends had a falling out when Charlie was asked to ‘kiss the prettiest girl in the room’ during Truth or Dare; instead of kissing his girlfriend Mary Elizabeth, he kisses Sam. The group of friends doesn’t talk to Charlie for a while.

          Patrick’s lover was the quarterback of the football team also a closet gay. Patrick and Brad got into a fight during lunch; it was basically the football team against Patrick. Charlie stepped in, blacked out, but beat the whole team unknowingly. The group of friends and Charlie became friends again after the incident. 

            When it was time for the seniors to graduate Charlie said goodbye to his best friends. He finally earned Sam’s love in return, he also reveled to Sam something that has always troubled him. Thought the book Charlie always wrote about his favorite aunt Helen. He wrote about the night she died, he blamed himself, and referred to things she did.

            After Charlie said goodbye to his friends he had a panic and went to his dark place again. He ended up back in an institution. The thing that had been troubling him for so many years had been reveled to him and his parents. He ends the diary writing that tomorrow is his sophomore year and that all is well.

            The movie takes all the important and best scenes from the book and weaves it together to form the movie. It was written and directed by Stephen Chbosky. I was most excited to find out that the movie kept the parts about Charlie’s aunt Helen. I thought the content of molestation would be too sensitive for some viewers so much that the moviemakers would have left those parts out, but they didn’t. The scenes depicted in the movie were exactly like how they were depicted in the book. This is probably because they same person wrote and directed the story. I don’t think the movie leaves the same impression that the reader has during the book. It is one of those stories that a person just has to read not watch in order to grasp the full story.

The only disconnection from the book to movie that I thought was the fact that the character talked about cassette tapes and Olive Garden. The book was set in the 80s-90s era; they didn’t talk about Olive Garden. It is unclear what time period the movie was set in because the mentioned Olive Garden and had cassette tapes. Those two ideas are not both in the same era.

I would recommend both the film and movie. The movie follows the book very well, but the book captures your soul. However, they both make you feel infinite.

Danielle D.

Book-to-Movie Review: The Hobbit

Movie- The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Part- Part 1 of 3 Book 
Based on- The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien Prequel to Lord of the Rings Saga Rating- 4/5 

            J.R.R. Tolkien has become a beloved writer who has provided us with the Lord of the Rings Saga. The LOTR movies, three in total, were released from 2001 to 2003. The franchise was very successful grossing close to three billion dollars worldwide. Although the books were first received with mixed reviews, Tolkien’s works are considered literary masterpieces. Tolkien wrote many books on the mythical land of Middle Earth. The making of the Hobbit was the next move for this internationally successful franchise.

            J.R.R. Tolkien is one of my favorite authors and people. His works are not only well written but there are hardly any gaps and holes in his plot and writing. He also does a very good job in describing this magical world to his readers. What many fantasy novelists fail to do is relay the information and history needed for the reader to understand the worlds they have created. Tolkien does a wonderful job of explaining his world so that there is not much ambiguity left. I first heard about Tolkien in high school. When everybody read Lord of the Flies, I got to skip over that and instead I read the Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I instantly fell in love with the books and the characters. Being a fantasy reading fanatic, I was hooked. So naturally, I found out about the movie as soon as it was announced for production. I waited five years for the movie to be made and released, from the day I found out to the day it came out. When it finally came out, I went to see it. 

Click Read More for Review on the Hobbit

Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey has gained a lot of attention nowadays. The raunchy pornography material depicted in the novels draws the attention. There is rumored to have a movie coming out portraying the first book or the series. To add to the rumor mill the thoughts of what actors will be playing the characters is always discussed. But what is not discussed is the quality of the writing in the books by E.L James.

The raunchy writings are not disturbing then are written in a tasteful manner. The depictions are somewhat easy to visualize. It is by all means an adult novel, but I would not go as far as banning it from libraries.

The series was made for Twilight fans. Some of the similarities can make a Twilight fan say “Come On!” The story is based in Washington state, come on. The main character is a pale dark-haired pretty girl, not a beautiful girl, come on. There is something mysterious about the male lead too that the main character has to figure out, come on.

The one big problem with this series is the horrible dialogue. No one in the real world would ever talk like the way the characters do in the novels. It just doesn’t seem real and it breaks the readers commitment to the writing. The dialogue takes away from the scenes depicted in the books. For example in Fifty Shades of Grey, the main characters are talking to each other about what the presence of Mr. Grey does to her. Grey starts “What’s not fair,” Anastasia replies “How you disarm people, women, me” “do I disarm you” “All the time” “It’s just looks, Anastasia” “No, Christian its more than that” “ You disarm me totally, Miss Steele. Your innocence. It cuts through all the crap.”

No one would really talk like this saying you disarm me, it just seems forced and fake.

Also in this book Grey lays out a contract for Steele to abide by, the contract is six pages long of just totally faked rules that seem so far-fetched from the S and M community.

During the novel the two characters email each other by the emails are like text messages and they don’t make sense. For example in Fifty Shades Darker Anastasia Steele, the main character emails Mr. Grey about a bar she is going to. She titles the email: You’ll fit right in, she dates and times it June 10 2011, 17:36 to Christian Grey and it says, “We are going to a bar called Fifty’s… the rich seam of humor that I could mine from this is endless…I look forward to seeing you there, Mr. Grey… A. X.” He replies back like a text message subject: Hazards, dates and times it June 10 2011, 17:38 to Anastasia Steele and it says, “Mining is a very, very dangerous occupation” signed Christian Grey CEO, Grey Enterprise Holdings, Inc.

It is a little annoying to read these emails that are supposed to be two minutes apart. They just take up the page.

Danielle

The Rise of Series and Sagas

            Lately, all you see on bookshelves and movie theaters are sequels, trilogies, and series. It seems as though the world doesn't want the normal one part story anymore, and sagas have been on the rise. Whether these sagas are Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight or the Hunger Games, these multiple part stories are not only popular but very profitable for the authors of these books. Take J.K Rowling for example. Not only is Harry Potter one of the most famous franchises in the world, but J.K Rowling is the first author to make a billion dollars off of books, which were eventually made into movies. The movies and promotional deals got her the billion, but the books got her the movies and deals in the first place. 

            So why do we as fans enjoy series and sagas? To be honest, I don't necessarily like sagas. I have read the Twilight Series and the Lord of the Rings, polar opposites in quality and plot, and both of them left me upset. It is not that I do not love reading, but sagas are both annoyingly suspenseful and extremely sad. I'm not a big fan of the cliffhanger. When I see a television show, I hate when they cut to commercial right before revealing the big surprise at the end. It just gets me angry. That is what a saga does to me. Once I finish the first book I have to read the second one and I get sucked into the vortex. Sometimes I want to shake the authors and just tell them to get to the point. I can’t spend another sleepless night wondering what happened to Frodo and Sam at the end of the Fellowship of the Ring and even when the story ends I’m still upset. (*spoiler alert*) Like what happened to Frodo and Bilbo when they went into the West. What does the West look like, and how did they live out their lives? (*end of spoiler*) It forces the reader into a fit of anxiety because we become so invested in these characters that we need to know everything about them and we need to know it right away before our journey with them is over.

            When it comes to the extremely sad part of why I don’t like sagas, it has to do with being with these characters for three or more books and having to say goodbye to them all of a sudden, never hearing anything more of them ever again. When I’m reading a one part story, my journey with those characters is short lived. But, if we are talking about a book like Harry Potter, where most of us spent a span of 10 years reading these books, we have more time to get invested in these characters. We form relationships with them, one sided relationships but relationships. They become a part of our lives, and all of a sudden, with the flip of the last page and the period at the end of the last sentence, we lose them. They are no longer a part of our lives, and the journey we took with them long gone. The books become documents of our lives together. We are no longer experiencing life with them, the words become like old journals we look through for memories and nostalgia. We are no longer living in those books, but instead they become old records we flip through for a reminder.

            I was not a big fan of the Twilight Saga. The books, in my opinion, could have been better written. Yet, when I read the last page of Breaking Dawn, I cried. And I was not a devoted fan. I cried because the journey was over. I was never going to hear anything more from Bella and Edward. That upset me. I had spent four books listening to Bella go on about how perfect Edward was, and I had to see her act like a fool in love and a damsel in distress at the same time. She annoyed me, her actions were that of a hormonal irrational teenage girl, and since I did not want boys to stereo type all girls as being that crazed while in love, I kind of resented her. Honestly, she could have been a stronger role model for girls. Still, even though she bothered me and even though her transformation from human to vampire was a little ridiculous, I cried when her story was done. I missed her, and part of me was enraged about not knowing what would happen to Bella and Edward.

            Yet regardless of the annoying cliffhangers, the extremely long plots and the bittersweet endings, readers love sagas. Almost all of the popular fantasy series I know have been turned into movies or television shows. Maybe it is because these stories become such a huge part of our lives that we love them. We get to have stories like Harry Potter that become a part of our lives for ten years. If you ask any Potterhead, those ten or so years were the best years of their lives. Getting lost into a magical world is wonderful, and getting lost into a magical world for years at a time is even better. My father once told me that fantasy novels and movies were pointless because they deluded people from reality. I told my father that the reality was that anyone could find magic in the world; they just had to be willing to look for it. In a way that is what fantasy books do for people. They open up the possibility that this world is so much more than what it seems. They open up the possibility that the impossible can be possible and that magic came be found in this world, even if it is found in the pages of a really good book. 
~Sarina T

P.S. I would love to hear from any of you. What do you think makes Series and Sagas so popular?


Disclaimer: I do not own any of the images used in this blog post. The views and opinions in this post do not reflect the opinions of the other two bloggers. They are just views and opinions that everyone is entitled to and they are not facts. 

The Question of Why in Harry Potter

Spoiler Alert!  Many fans of the Harry Potter movies never fully grasp why Harry Potter and Voldermert are really out to get each other.

Even if you have seen all the movies, the reasons how the war of Voldemort vs. Harry Potter came about is not touched upon thoroughly.

The whole reason the infamous story of Harry Potter exists in because of a prophecy predicted by Sybil Trelawney during her interview with Dumbledore for a divination (future telling) teacher at Hogwarts.

She foresaw “The one with powers to vanquish The Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies… and The Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power The Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while he other survives,” we learned this in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

            Basically, Voldemort heard of a prophecy that someone’s child is going to end him. Severus Snape overheard her and told Volemort.

There were only two possibilities Harry, the son of Lily and James Potter or Neville, the son of Alice and Frank Longbottom. Yes! It could have been Neville Longbottom who could defeat The Dark Lord.

            Voldemort set out to find the parents of both sons. Bellatrix, The Dark Lords right-hand woman tortured the Longbottoms with the Cruciatus curse to find out their information. Bellatrix was unsuccessful, the Longbottoms revealed nothing, but Bellatrix tortured them so badly that they are residents of St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.

            Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew, James Potter’s friend was their secret keeper. Sirius Black was their original secrete keeper, but he made them change it because he felt Voldemort knew he was the Potter’s secrete keeper.

Wormtail was a loyal follower of Voldemort, he told him where Lily and James Potter were. Voldemort set forth to them at their home in Godric’s Hollow. Voldemort killed James with the Avada Kedavra curse when he got in the way of him. Voldemort told Lily she did not need to die, but just to hand her son over. She did not. She died the same way her husband James did. However, because Lily died for her son it placed a very powerful magical shield over Harry. When Voldemort went to curse baby Harry his spell backfired to him instead, thus leaving just a scar on Harry.

The curse was again Avada Kedavra, the killing curse. Voldemort was ‘killed.’ He only existed through his horcuxes. The seven objects Voldemort ripped parts of his soul into. He eventually regained his powers and set forth again to try to destroy Harry before he destroys him. Harry Potter’s only sure way to finish Voldemort for good is to destroy his horcuxes as well.

             

Danielle D. 

A day in Hogsmeade

Let’s go to Hogsmeade!

Let’s go to Hogsmeade!

Hello everyone I’m your neighborhood friendly blogger named Colin. I am bit of a traveler book nut, and professional nerd. Currently a few friends and I are doing a school project in which we are tasked to maintain a weekly blog. So, the focus of this is going to talk about some of our favorite fantasy books, movies, locations, and whatnots.  So to start things rolling we can talk about my latest trip to the Harry Potter village Hogsmeade at Universal Studios in Orlando Florida.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

This was my first time going to Hogsmeade and it was fantastic. You feel that you are really going into the world of Harry Potter, the buildings, the props, and the people all looked like they rolled right out of the movies. My first stop was to the ride was the Forbidden Journey. I agree with everyone that should be your first stop, when I got there the wait was one 20 minutes, by the time got off the wait time was well over an hour. The ride itself combines age old thrills with new technologies. They combine 3 dimensional videos with advance animatronics. The inside they truly decked out a Hogwarts for you to enjoy while you wait.  Inside you'll find some familiar characters and sets that you'll recognize from the movies. The ride itself is great experience and is worth the wait. Without giving to much away , you'll end up skipping class and going on an amazing broom stick ride  (your really sitting in a booth) through Hogwarts. Overall this is a must see when visiting

All Aboard the Hogwarts Express

After we left Hogwarts castle my family and i traveled down to the village of  Hogsmeade. In the village they had many shops you can shop around. i recommend that you stop by and learn how to get a wand at Olivander's a great experience for those travelling with young witches and wizards. The Village has many sets that you would recognize from the movie, such as the Hogwarts Express, and stores such as Filch's Emporium of Confiscated Goods , Honeydukes, Zonkos Joke , Owl Post.  Don't forget while you're there to stop and have a nice Butter beer or Pumpkin juice down at the Three Broom Sticks. 

MMM Butterbeer! 

Colin N.

Double Feature: An Intro and Review

            Reading has always been my favorite pastime. There is just something so great about words. Actions may speak louder, but words make the world seem okay, especially if those words come together to form a great book. The reason I love the fantasy genre so much is because it takes you into different worlds that help you escape from your reality. The funny thing is that most of these places aren’t messed up too. Take Panem for example. I’m sure no one would want to compete in the Hunger Games, yet it’s a book and place many of us love. Or take Harry Potter for example. Throughout the whole story there are multiple attempts made to kill the main character. Harry Potter, “the boy who lived” almost dies. And although his world is full of chaos, pain, and destruction, many of us would trade places with him. Their worlds seem better than ours because they are full of magic and possibility. And I think Harry Potter speaks for all of us when he says “I love magic”.

Click Read More for Review on Bones of Faerie by Janni Lee Simner

Once Upon a Time

Welcome to our blog! If you are interested in all things fantasy novels, like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings or the Hunger Games, then you have come to the right place. We will be giving you reviews, fun facts, novel secrets and much more. You will also be getting book companions and books-to-movie reviews. So if you love books and quirky personalities, then join Rita Skeeter's friends and bookworm's rejoice!


We post every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Be sure to check our new posts!