Book Review: The Kite Runner

Five out of five stars for this one.

I admit that I never read bestselling, blockbuster novels. I wait a few years, and especially since I’m a little low on money these days it’s hard to afford the $15 shiny books in Barnes & Noble (that I never go to anyway because the one closest to me went out of business right around the time Borders did; go figure). Anyway, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini was my first borrowed library ebook, and the process was smooth and wonderful. Two weeks is more than enough time for me to absorb books like this.

Anyway, on to the actual review! Because I stink at summaries, I’ll simply give you the book’s blurb:

The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner tells a sweeping story of family, love, and friendship against a backdrop of history that has not been told in fiction before, bringing to mind the large canvases of the Russian writers of the nineteenth century. But just as it is old-fashioned in its narration, it is contemporary in its subject-the devastating history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years. As emotionally gripping as it is tender, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful debut.

Amir grows up in a pre-war Afghanistan with his servant and best friend, Hassan. The two are inseparable. But when Amir, desperate to become worthy in his father’s eyes, and Hassan fall victim to abuse and retribution, things fall apart. From there, it’s a tale of finding what it means to be honorable and loyal as well as truly “good.” On top of that, you get a lot of Afghan culture and tradition woven into the plot, which is something I personally enjoyed, as I never knew about Afghan lifestyles and idiosyncrasies. It also tells of an Afghanistan history I never knew about — all I knew of the place was that we’re currently fighting there, and this was an interesting eye-opener to their culture as well as what the people there struggle with.

The story itself is not happy, but it’s truly brilliant in that solemn way. You walk away pondering things. Also, the ending is very satisfying (because to me that’s something important to know about a book). I recommend this and give it a five out of five stars.

TV Series Review: Sons of Anarchy

So my internet’s been a little wacky lately, as in it refused to cooperate for a total of four days. This is why Friday’s post never happened and why Tuesday is suddenly Monday, in terms of post length and content. But enough of that.

Netflix is an interesting source of new addictions for me, though they may seem delayed to those who actually watch TV on a regular basis. My husband and I are really into TV shows and movies — though we aren’t the best at keeping up with watching a show regularly, which is why we tend to wait until the entire series is in one place for us to spurge on. We’ll give most shows a chance. At first it was Breaking Bad that we got addicted to (which will be an entirely different post), but for the past week we’ve been watching the show Sons of Anarchy.

Sons of Anarchy follows the (fictional) biker club Sons of Anarchy, Main Charter Motorcycle Club Redwood Original (SAMCRO, said as Sam Crow) and their escapades in gun trafficking as well as other very illegal, very troublesome activities.

 

First image:”Jax” Teller; Second image: Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman) and Gemma Teller Morrow (Katey Sagal)

As with all TV shows, there are multiple main characters, but the story more or less revolves around the “prince”, SAMCRO’s vice president Jackson “Jax” Teller, played by Charlie Hunnam. Other main characters are Jacks’s mother, Gemma (Katey Sagal) Teller Morrow and Clay Morrow (Ron Perlman). I have to say that Ron Perlman is one of my favorite actors, mostly because he shows up in the strangest roles and pulls them off well, and he is great as the hardcore head honcho of the Sons. The funniest, and weirdest, character (to me) is Sergeant-At-Arms Alex “Tig” Trager (Kim Coates). The show itself has the greatest, if not slightly raunchy, humor. Very dry humor, which is right up my alley.

The series has four complete seasons and is scheduled for a fifth, apparently. I’m really enjoying where it’s going and am eager to watch more. I really recommend at least checking this show out. It is not a kid’s show, and I do not recommend it as a family affair at all, but it’s still a great show.

What do you think? Have you watched Sons of Anarchy? What were your impressions?

Book Review: The Forever War by Joe Haldeman

There are so many covers for this one, I just picked the one that looked coolest.

The promised review won’t be very long (that’s actually a lie). I’m not one to ramble on and on because I accidentally give spoilers (not a lie, and yet the truth at the same time)(expect a lot of parenthesis,  too).

The Forever War

Rating: 5/5 stars

Amazon blurb quote: “The book tells the timeless story of war, in this case a conflict between humanity and the alien Taurans. Humans first bumped heads with the Taurans when we began using collapsars to travel the stars. Although the collapsars provide nearly instantaneous travel across vast distances, the relativistic speeds associated with the process means that time passes slower for those aboard ship. For William Mandella, a physics student drafted as a soldier, that means more than 27 years will have passed between his first encounter with the Taurans and his homecoming, though he himself will have aged only a year. When Mandella finds that he can’t adjust to Earth after being gone so long from home, he reenlists, only to find himself shuttled endlessly from battle to battle as the centuries pass.”

Okay, so if that little blurb didn’t hook you, you’re clearly not interested in the concepts of time and relativity, which is fine. Personally, I love the concept of one person living to see the beginning and end of a thousand year long war because of time relativity. Technically, because of the collapsars, these people travel near instantaneously from collapsar point to collapsar point. Mandella, at the beginning of the story, was only enlisted for two years, and, like the blurb said, came home twenty-seven years later, even though he’s only around twenty-five years old.

Awesome, right?

Personally, I loved the writing style of this book, but some of the Amazon reviews said it reads like literary fiction or that the narration is bland. If you’re into Twilight or Potter-type narration then yeah, this book won’t really be entertaining because of the sheer difference in style. However, I think the narration is one of the book’s most interest aspects. You infer a lot, you miss out on a lot of details (especially about Earth throughout these thousand or so years).

The other interesting aspect was the Taurans. They aren’t human in most ways, other than the fact that they are bipedal. Their motives aren’t exactly explained, and you’re left with an interesting amorphous concept of what it means to fight the Taurans instead. The humans aren’t fighting someone who wants to eradicate the human species, they’re fighting a race that suddenly started attacking once humanity started using the collapsars. What in the world does that even mean? Were the collapsars theirs first? And so on. Again, maybe I just read way too far into the text, but the book is so rich in details and concepts (like the relevance of war, sexuality even).

When it comes to concepts, there are certain turns of events that can be really controversial and were honestly surprising to me at first, but I like that the author went out on a limb and wrote the story anyway, controversy be damned. But if you don’t like homosexuality or the thought of homosexuality (because that seems to be a big issue with a lot of people I know), read this book with caution but not presumptions. It’s a part of the story but not the entire point, so don’t get caught up on it.

Okay, I’ll stop rambling about this. My point is the book is wonderful, makes you think about our world and where it’s heading (whether or not we can change it), and what war means. For me, there were some interesting parallels to the US’s recent long-winded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but you’ll have to tell me if you get the same thing if you read the book. I think a lot of people have said the writer was referring primarily to Vietnam, since the book was written in the 70s. But I’ll stop now. Really. Go buy the ebook at least, it’s only $4.95, and it’s well, well worth that price.

PS: I’m now twenty-one.

PPS: Doesn’t Mandella look like James Franco in that cover art? Or is that just me?

A Game of Thrones Review

I rated this: four out of five stars

So many people before me have loved the Song of Ice and Fire novels. A Game of Thrones is the first book in the series, written by George R.R. Martin. It follows the twisted paths of the Starks, of the Lannisters, of the Baratheon king, of the once-royal Targaryen siblings, and of the castle politics that swallow all of them. There is death and life, destruction and change, hope and fear. Often I had no idea where the plot was going, and that’s what I loved most about it. It wasn’t a lost blindness but rather a charge forward at full speed. Usually.

The world itself is incredibly rich. It feels like another existence. The main setting is the Seven Kingdoms, of which Robert Baratheon rules from his castle in King’s Landing. The story starts when Robert asks Eddard “Ned” Stark, his old friend and former ally against the royal “dragons” of the Targaryen line Robert deposed from the throne, to become the new Hand of the King. The former, Lord Jon Arryn, the man who was both Robert and Ned’s ward when they were younger, was recently deceased. But there were suspicious circumstances. Ned wants nothing more than to stay north in his cold Winterfell, but Robert, being king, insists. His Lannister wife, Cersei, and their three children go to Winterfell to see Ned. However, the Lannisters and the Starks don’t get along — and for good reason.

From there, the plot propels forward as Ned and his family are thrust further into the game of thrones than they cared for.

However, the plot also follows the last surviving Targaryens, Viserys and Daenerys. They managed to escape their family’s destruction. Viserys constantly plots to uproot the Usurper Baratheon from the Iron Throne. But they are far away to the east, where the barbarian Dorhtraki have the greatest power outside of the Free Cities (of which you see very little until later books, or so I’m told). Viserys sells Daenerys to Khal Drogo in exchange for the Hun-like horseman’s khalasar — fourty thousand men strong. Viserys plans to use these men to take the throne back. But all doesn’t go as planned, and the perspective is from Daenerys’s point of view.

Personally, my favorite characters were the Imp — witty dwarf Tyrion Lannister — and Daenerys. Both seemed to have the best, most complex personalities. Daenerys in particular made me want to root for her the entire way.

I give this novel a four out of five stars for plot and character as well as long term scope. You can tell this world is going to be massive and the conflict even grander. It keeps you hooked, especially as each snippet is told in a linear way from various perspectives, including Bran Stark (Ned’s son), Catelyn Stark (Ned’s wife), Daenerys, Jon Snow (Ned’s bastard son), Tyrion Lannister, Arya Stark (Ned’s youngest daughter), and Sansa Stark (Ned’s other daughter), and Ned himself.

But therein lies the novel’s greatest problem. How many characters is that? Seven? Eight? Sometimes George R.R. Martin will end a chapter at a cliffhanger and go on from another character’s perspective, then go on to yet another chapter from yet another character’s perspective. Finally, three chapters later, the conflict is resumed, usually some days later. Sometimes I found this annoying. I wanted to see some resolution or action in various places where it was denied, and that detracted from the overall experience. It created a very choppy pace at times, and the head-hopping could be a little disorienting, which caused the pace to slow.

Still, in the scheme of things, that issue is a crack in an otherwise grand masterpiece. While the crack can be jarring, the overall mastery of the story can’t be ignored, especially in the final chapter. But that could just be because I like Daenerys. Either way, I want to know what happens to her and the others. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in a “castle politics” sort of epic fantasy.