A story of life and forgivness

For One More Day (2006)
Albom, Mitch
philosophical novel
5/5 Stars









     For One More Day is about a professional baseball star who climbs to the top, gets marries, and has a picture perfect life. Charley Benetto's life goes in an unexpected downward spiral spiral when the troubles of life lead him to the addiction of alcohol, and suddenly his picture perfect life is in tatters. He divorces his wife, loses his team, and loses control over himself. His daughter was married, and he was sent a picture and card, but no invitation. Charley at the lowest point in his life decides to leave this life behind. Mitch Albom writes about Charley's incredible story of "dying" and learning to accept the hand he was dealt in life.

     Charley's life was full of unexplained events. His parents got a divorce and he never heard from his father for quite sometime, and he was not sure if he ever would hear from him ever again, but suddenly his father comes to random events in his life, yet does not leave Charley with the feeling of wanting to be a "Daddy's boy" anymore. This book has a major theme of forgiveness as the story progress so does Charley. He understands what it means to be forgiving and he changes, he forgives himself and others around him for anything that they had done.

     The narrator of the book is first person. Charley tells his story and makes you truly feel like you know him and have grown up with him through it all. The style of the book is written in short chapters that switch back and forth from present to past. You learn about all of the things that have built his character, and you know all of the emotions he is feeling and the thoughts he is thinking.

     Like most of Mitch Albom's books this book is to be taken more seriously, so the audience is most likely going to be mature adults. The book is more dry and harder to understand from some of the things that go on in the story it is hard to believe. The subject is not a light one it is sad, and personable. When you read this book you really do need a serious attitude toward the story or it would be more difficult to take in.

     I would most definitely recommend this book to someone who was willing to read it with a serious attitude, yet if they were not the type for the book I would not be so into the idea of recommending it. I think that if I were to recommend this book it would be to an adult that is okay with reading dry, serious, emotional books because you will experience a wave of emotion if you do read it, so be ready. James McBride, author of The Color of Water said: "For One More Day will make you smile. It will make you wistful. It will make you blink back tears of nostalgia. But most of all, it will make you believe in the eternal power of a mother's love."

Inspirational and deeply emotional

Tuesdays with Morrie (1991)
Albom, Mitch
Nonfiction
5/5 Stars

     Tuesdays with Morrie is a true story about Mitch Albom, and his collage professor Morrie Schwartz. When Albom was in his sociology class they would meet every Tuesday and talk about life, his thesis papers he is writing in collage, and just about anything that they could think of. Albom promised Morrie that when he graduates and goes off to his new life he would not forget his old sociology professor. When Albom graduated he moved away from Brandies University, and got a job as a journalist. Though he truly never forgot about his friend Morrie he was busy in his own life with his job, and family that he never had time to go visit. When Albom was watching television one night and saw Morrie on "Nightline", and he then remember his promise to come and visit, so he calls up his old professor and they schedule a date for him to come down and visit, the next Tuesday. Albom comes down to see him to discover that Morrie has developed Lou Gehrig's disease and he was slowly dying. Albom then made a promise that he would come whenever he could, and he did come every Tuesday he had time he came, and they picked up their old conversations just as they had left them. They talked about love, marriage, life, happiness, and death. A professor and his student.

     One theme that is mainly what Mitch Albom was writing about and what Morrie wanted Albom to understand the most was something that Morrie's Favorite author, W. H. Auden had stated best "love each other or perish". He taught Albom about all the things he had learned in life and what he wanted people to gain from, but he wanted mostly for people to know that.

     The narrator of this book is first person from Mitch Albom's prospective about all of the conversations that went between them. He has a style that will make you want to keep reading but is more mature and defiantly more of a sad read because of the story. Albom makes you really understand the characters, and you feel like you have known them your whole life which makes the book very interesting and indulging.

     The audience ment to read this book is defiantly adult. This is not a book that most teenager would enjoy, but I enjoyed it all the same. The story is true, and it can get rather dull at parts, but other times you never want to put it down because it is such an enticing story. The story is a very serious dramatic read that gets emotional at times because Albom talks about everything in so much depth, so there is no holding back on his stories.

     I would recommend this book to anyone who was willing to take is seriously, and actually read it. The seriousness of it all would make it hard for someone to ready that was not a very deep emotional person. If you enjoy life lesson books, and learning when you read this would honestly be the best book for you. Publishers Weekly wrote: "An emotionally rich book and a deeply affecting memorial".

Move Over Hunger Games--There is a New Competition In Town

 

The Maze Runner (2009)
 Dasher, James
Fiction
5/5 stars








     Thomas woke up in a smelly windowless room, confused, and alone. He could not remember anything, nor anyone except his first name. He heard the walls of the room starting to shift, and he began to move slowly up. The elevator stopped and slowly opened from above. Thomas saw faces slowly come into focus and was lifted from the elevator by a group of boys. He did not know one person, and had no clue where he was. Thomas was told that he was in a place called Glade and all the boys lived there, and now he would too. Glade is surrounded by four massive stone walls that have doors on each side leading into the maze. The doors close each night protecting the boys from the monsters, called Grievers, inside the maze, yet that does not stop them.  Each day a group of boys, Runners, go into the maze to find a way out of Glade, yet each night when they come back to Glade the walls of the maze shift so the runners have a new path every time. After one day of being in Glade Thomas was more confused then when he first arrive, and to make everything even more confusing another person arrived in the box, which only happens once a month, and the new arrival was a girl. After that Glade changed and more chaos erupted, so they all had to find out what was going on.

     In The Maze Runner one of the themes that the book is really based off of is freedom. Thomas and all of the other people in Glade are trapped by an unknown source forced to find their way out, and not knowing how. This is a violation of their freedom and throughout the book they all work to be free of whatever is keeping them.

     The Maze Runner is written in Third person limited narrator, so the story is told just about Thomas from a view that is not himself, so you know his thoughts and feelings, but no one else's. James Dasher wrote The Maze Runner in a very mixed way because he has humor and other parts that are serious, but not super serious.

     This story is more appropriate for late Junior Hight and High School because it got a bit intense, and a little more of a mature plot, and ideas of what the book is about. In the book the author uses some words that do not actually exist, but the boys in the Glade made them up, so it does get a bit confusing to read because it is hard to tell what they are talking about, but once you get into the book it is easier to understand what they are saying though for younger ages it would be a difficult read because they would not know what the words are.

     This book was such a good book especially if you like the Hunger Games series, or anything like those books because they stories are similar, but they are different enough that the story is very original. I would defiantly recommend this book to anyone because the story was so thought out, original, and has twists and turns that make it interesting and very enjoyable to read.

Bitting into a great book!

The Vampire Diaries (1991)

Smith, L. J. 

Fiction

2.5/5 stars 

     Elena Gilbert had always gotten what and who she wanted. She was the prettiest, and the most popular girl in school, everyone wanted her approval. She was always looked up to as the confident young women everyone wanted to be. That is until the summer before her senior year at Robert E. Lee Hight School. Elena's parents were both killed in a car accident leaving her four-year-old sister Margaret and herself to be raised by their aunt Judith. After that everything changed. Though Elena tried very hard to act normal, and confident like she had always been everyone knew she was not the same. When senior year started  she was determined to be that "popular girl that everyone wanted to be"again. On the first day of school Elena, who had always had an eye for boys, spotted one in particular. She had never seen him before, and she was determined to make him hers. Elena makes her two best friends, Bonnie and Meredith swear to do anything and everything they can to help her get him, and because of that without knowing they had just found themselves in the most horrifying year of their lives. 

   Elena finds herself, and finds what it is like to choose right from wrong. She learns that popularity is not all that needs to achieved in life. In the beginning of the book Elena is very egotistic. She only cares what is going on with her life and how she can make her popularity increase even more, but after she meets Stephan her perspective shifts, and she realizes that even though she is no longer the most popular girl she is happy, and she does not care what other people think of her any more. 

     The Vampire Diaries has some humorous parts to it, but mostly it focusses in on the drama of the story. L. J. Smith wrote this book in a third-person omniscient narrator which gives you an inside look on any characters thoughts and feelings at anytime. Though you are mostly reading from the prospective of Elena and Stephan it does switch around to other characters. This is confusing at sometimes because you do need to read a bit into each "change" in order to know what character you are reading from the prospective of because the author does not really give you a hint that the prospective has changed. 

      This book was definitely intended for an older group around 15 year-olds and older, and most likely the gender reading it would be female, but that does not mean males would not like it as well. There are fight scenes quite often adding to the the more intense side of the book, but also watch out there is the lovey-dovey things as well. There is very mild language but the book does have violent  scenes in it so be prepared.

     The Vampire Diaries is actually nothing at all like the Twilight series, but I am still not a die hard fan of the books. The writing is put together well and the plot has many well thought out twists and turns, but I was not totally in love with the story itself, and that could just be that I am not one for vampire love stories, but that is just my opinion. The Vampire Diaries was on the "New York Times Bestselling List" and had many good reviews written about it.