March 2020

Did not spark any enjoyment-★☆☆☆☆

Okay-★★☆☆☆

Entertaining-★★★☆☆

Incredible-★★★★☆

Life Changing-★★★★★


READING RATE: 30.3 PAGES/DAY

REFLECTION

I am impressed with my reading rate this month. I felt that the two extra weeks of break and as well as spring break allowed me to read more than I usually would on a regular basis. It was a great way for me to relax and get my mind off of what was going on outside my home and in the world. I noticed that I failed to read the books that I had in mind to read as my goals for last month and the reason for that was because I was limited on the books that I could read. I have found alternatives in an e-book app that I have been using, called Libby. Currently it has allowed me to read fiction as well as nonfiction pieces, plays, poetry, and many more. I still want to read The Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, which I put as my reading goal for last month, along with that I will like to also read at least one play and one poetry book.


The BOOKS That I HAVE READ THIS MONTH:

The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill(209 of 526 pages)-★★★★☆

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe(209 pages)-★★☆☆☆

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom(199 pages)-★★★★★

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton(256 pages)-★★★☆☆

The Talking Horse and the Sad Girl and the Village Under the Sea by Mark Haddon(66 pages)-★★★☆☆


Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest ...

tuesdays with morrie

Tuesdays with Morrie is a novel that teaches so many life lessons. One can read it over and over again to keep everything in memory when they know that they will need it the most. It is a novel that I am sure to read in the future and especially when I enter the older ages in life. Not only is it just interesting to gain knowledge from this non fiction book and memoir, but as well as following  along with the real life characters and how it has come about the making and publishing of it. The reason for the title of Tuesdays with Morrie, is to gain recognition for Morrie, a former professor in Brandeis University, who is later diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as ALS, in his mid 70s. Morrie refuses to remain depressed of his recent diagnosis. Although he slowly weakens and deteriorates as time moves forward, his mind is at a healthy mindset of what he knows is about to come, which is death. Mitch Albom, author of this novel and former student of Morrie, lives life constricted in his business space and only worries for the sake of making enough money for him to live his life comfortably. He also has a good professor to student relationship with Morrie when had attended, so good to the point that Mitch had attended all classes by Morrie because he had motivated all his students. Thirty years later, Mitch is sitting, watching the television, when he watches Morrie talk about life with ALS. Mitch flies down to where Morrie lives, and every week as Morrie weakens, he gives Mitch lessons about life such as family, marriage, death, and more up until the day that he dies. The reason for meeting on Tuesdays is because that was when they had always met when he was back in university as a student and Morrie a professor.

This is a book that I know will always stick with me. I read this book a few years back and it stuck with me then and it still sticks with me now. I thought about it recently and decided to read it again. It’s a book that can be read so quickly, but the the words float in your mind everyday without disappearing. The reason for my rating being so high is because I genuinely think that it is a life changing book that can alter the perspective of how our society and generation looks at things.

 

Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan PatonCry, the beloved country

Cry, the Beloved Country, by Alan Paton creates so many emotions for readers who grasp every moment of the book. An old man, Stephen Kumalo, seeks his son, Absolam Kumalo, in a place in South Africa, called Johannesburg. The reason he has sought for his son in such a far and mysterious place is because he has not heard from him for so long. It is known for people to go off to Johannesburg and never come back along with the failure of sending a letter to tell them that they are okay. Johannesburg also has the reputation of people who are involved in crime and later sent off to jail. The book is creates suspense, chaos, and mystery all in one at the time of the climax, when Kumalo discovers his son is committed of a crime and got a girl impregnated. Absalom and two others had been secretly in the house of a white man, Arthur Jarvis. He comes down from the stairs unexpectedly and with fright Absolam fires a gun at his chest. Absolam runs away and hides in different places in the fear that he is going to get caught by the police. He later gets caught. His trial comes along. The two men who were alongside Absalom are free of no charge as they hadn’t fired the gun at Arthur Jarvis. Stephen is bereaved of the son he is yet to lose and had already previously lost for so many painful years. Before Stephen leaves Johannesburg. He marries Gertrude and she becomes the daughter-in-law of Stephen. Cry, the Beloved Country brings the reader through a whirlwind of a journey as well as facing the reality of how life was led in South Africa during the time of the apartheid, It emphasizes the differences between the whites and the blacks facing life in their own ways.

Cry, the Beloved Country, was an enjoyable book because it incorporated so many genres in one full book. It had a lot of adventure and as well as some aspects of historical fiction, romance, and mystery. At first, I found the novel difficult to grasp my head around it, but as I went in further and deeper, as I turned the pages, I grew into loving it even more. Although, the book does not provoke me to reading it another time if I had the chance, I still see it as something that really educated me in a way that no other book could have done the same.

The Book Of Negroes: A Novel: Hill, Lawrence: 9781443408981: Books ...The Book of Negroes

I really came to loving The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill even more. The end of the novel had left me speechless and surprised because it was something that had left me convinced that it would never happened. As I continued to read this book into the month of March, I grew to love Aminata Diallo’s personality such as her confidence and her fight for her freedom. The ending that had still stuck with me till this day had been the daughter that she had lost, came back into her life. My heart began to race because not only was I convinced that she would no longer see her daughter ever again, but Aminata thought to herself that she wouldn’t see her again. At those times, it was difficult to pick up a phone and ask where she would have been . She had to accept that her daughter was long gone from her life. I also sympathized with Aminata for the reason being that her husband, Chekura had died in the ship that they were supposed to board together, and also, due to the fact, that her son had died of the small pox sickness that had been going around at the time. The novel felt so real in a way that readers, like me, felt that they were deep in the moment and facing the realities that the characters were in. I felt my anger boil in some areas of the novel as well, where the plantation owner, Mr. Applebee had sold Aminata’s son to another plantation. The novel emphasized the details of everything so clearly and the imagery conveyed so perfectly of the living conditions the character’s had been in.

The Book of Negroes has a long lasting effect on reader’s lives and it is a great way to alter one’s perspective of life during slavery. It’s especially hard to imagine how someone could go through such brutal times. It is a novel that I rated as incredible for the reason being that I got to just enjoy the book and flip each page wondering what is going to happen next. Something new always happens which hooks you even more into the depths of the book and its pages. Aminata is such a great role model, despite losing everything, but gaining so much more and eventually getting something back in the end which was her daughter. It is a book that I know will stay vivid in my mind for a long time.