The End....

I am now nearing the end of my I-Reflect assignments. I did five books, and with each i did a review and every week i learnt. I learnt more about spotting themes and how to really critique books and authors. It was a good experience. I had a lot of Books to choose from by am glad i chose: Pride and Prejudice, The other Boleyn Girl, The Catcher in the Rye, Perfume and To Kill a Mockingbird. All five were so different and this was what mad rthem soo good.

My favourite would have to be Pride and Prejudice, but my favourite review was either Perfume or To Kill a Mockingbird, as both were such a challenge to write about.

Thoroughly enjoyed this assignment :)

Off to read more ......

             

Improvement needed:

From the moment i decided that i was going to read a book a week and review it, i have been learning and improving my writing skills. I feel i did get some things right and do need to improve:

• My focus line i felt improved and was quite good by the end of it: Summing up my feelings and the book in one or two lines. "From start to finish I couldn’t put it down, it was scandalous, sexy and sad. The untold story of Mary Boleyn and the Boleyn family who will stop at nothing to get what they want." (Ending line from The other Boleyn Girl review) and " It was a novel oozing in smells and description" (From my Perfume review) and "To Kill a Mockingbird has life to it, it has a heart that is filled with so much emotion. This is a must read, and the moment you finish, reading it again is a definite." (From my To Kill a Mockingbird review)

• My negative feelings need to improve, although thankfully I only disliked one book i read (Catcher in the Rye) I still wrote a pretty bad review. I hope next time I read a book that lets me down I can say it was bad without stating that outright.

• I always knew what was good and what was bad about my reviews and could compare them to the professional ones. Every week I said, I need to improve this. I think I did improve too, my the end of the 5 weeks of book reading I could say I improved and learnt alot about critically reviewing novels, adn even what makes a good book to me.

• I enjoyed myself!!!! I love reading and it was a really great and fun time doign so. I wanted to come to Uni on a friday so i could write my review and feelings towards my books.
• I kept up with my work, so much with Uni, I can get behind, this one has been perfect.
• I need to write more, sometime i had so much to say but kept my reviews shorter, and then comparing my review to the professional review was harder because i had barely wrote much compared to the professional one.

To kill a Mockingbird...

I have written my review, i quite like it. I t might not be the best but im not to bothered. Ive definetly learned a lot with this book and thats what matters.

I also found a Professional review from 'The Times' that is from 1960, it is quite similar to the reviews written now, it had the feelings of the person writing the review, it has the summary of the book (even thoguh it was longer then how the summary is written now), it had themes and it was a very well written review. It was written by 'Anonymous' which is probably because back then writing a review about a perhaps 'controversial' novel might have been risky. What i loved most about it was that even back then, just after the book had been released, reviewers knew how special of a book it would be. Just need to comapre the reviews now.

Book 5: To Kill a Mockingbird

This book is amazing, i was leisurely reading it and have spent the last 30 minutes finsihing it. Im so unsure how to do it justice. This is a novel with such powerful history that im struggling to find the words. How do you write a review without just saying 'it was amazing, it was eye-opening and i you haven't read it you need to ASAP!'
This is my kind of book. To all my Friends and Family i am known to love this kind of story. I wouldn't say im an activist but i love Black civil rights. I know so much about it. I like to imagine that i would have been the type of person to be a white person in the 1960s defending the black community. I support all types of people, and find the black civil rights period so sad, disgusting and powerful.. So how do i do a book so courageous justice. I can't. I am so amazed that the author (Harper Lee) wrote a book with racial themes during the black civil rights movement. A white woman openly showing the ideals that would be very much frowned apon.

My sister has been telling me for ages 'you have to read To Kill a Mockingbird, you will love it'.. so at the start of this week, i picked up this novel and just starting reading, i read it on the bus, i read it in 'starbucks' and I ignored my friends to read it. I am normally a fast reader but this book i re-read sentences, i really wanting to be absorbed by it. Plus this week is the second to last week of Uni so having to finsh other assignments was also on my mind. This novel was hard to read... but in the best way, maybe i'll just say that in my review. It was a story filled with life and was filled with....
Will begin to start writing it now...

To Kill a Mockingbird Themes

Book 4: Perfume (The masterpiece)

"Odors have a power of persuasion stronger than that of words, appearances, emotions, or will. The persuasive power of an odor cannot be fended off, it enters into us like breath into our lungs, it fills us up, imbues us totally. There is no remedy for it.”

Reading Perfume was delicious but gross at the same time, The main character was inhumane and unrecognisable, but someone i wanted him to win, i wanted him to know what the women smelt like. The general reader of novels is usually in favour of the good guy or girl, the villians of the story are found by us with evil stares and sometimes whole body shivers.
This novel was all about Grenouille and his amazing scense of smell, i  really could smell what he was describing. The author did such a great job with this book. I loved it.

I found writing this weeks review was tough though, i spent nearly an hour doing my review as the words perfect enough to despcribe how i felt were hard to find, i really wanted to be creative. I finished my review feelign confident....Of corse i then found a New York times review (professionl review) and realised that my review was not even half as good as that review. But what fun i had with this week's assignment.
Next week is nmy last book, i am so un sure about what to finish with, i have read some of the greats in novels and i really want to end with a phenomenal novel...

Week three and book three:

the original cover, 1951.

This week i did The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, my review was bad. I feel that's the only way to put it. I didnt like the book, and before class i finished the book and was still hung up on the lack of plot, the craziness of the main character and the sad fall the book took from the high pedistole it had been put on from the moment it was released. Maybe i was excited because the book was such an American classic and famous as it was linked to the killing of John Lennon(The Beatles). I fi could rewrite the review i would, i wouldnt say it was fantastic, bu looking back on 'The Catcher in the Rye', it was amazing writing, the themes involved and the anguish of the main charchter was intense and interesting. The book was released in 1951, and was a strange book even for those times. It is an amazing book and maybe ill read it again without all the expectation. OK book, but bad review writing by me. I'm going to read Perfume next week, I've watched the movie and it's been on the Whitcoulls top 100 for years, so i'm excited and hopeful that it's much better then the last book.

week two and book two:

I read, finished, and worte my review, got the professional review and compared them for 'the other Boelyn girl'. It was harder then last week, but luckily i also loved this book, it was a long book and small writing but i couldnt put it down and found it addictive and seductive. It was such an amazing book, so at the moment i'm really liking this assessment. What i learnt this week was that i need to be a little more formal and to use quotes so that i can really include the plot into my review, i still need to work on the plot summary for my review. I do think i did better then last week though. i used a good genre of words to really draw people in, and yet again i loved the book so it was easy to do. I'm trying to do a different book every week, and different story wise too, so next week im reading The catcher in the rye.. I'm a little nervous as i don't think ive read a book like it before.
Fingers crossed...

The other boelyn girl.... "Scandalous,sexy and sad"

Week one and book one:

It's the first week of my project for brief 2. I have written a review, selected a professional review and compared the reviews for Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. My review was a very positive one, i loved that novel. It was an absolute classic and is my favourite book. I felt like this week was quite easy, as i loved the book, the pofessional review was positive and comparing seemed easy. I feel a sense of dread as i begin to select my next book, ive chosen 'the other boelyn girl' by Phillpia Gregory (It was on sale at borders). It's a differnent genre to P & P and also very long so could be challenging.
One challenge i have found so far is how difficult it is to write a review about a book that u just want to say, 'It was brillant and fabulous etc' . I feel like i need to be more professional in my writing, i spent an hour writing ym review for Pride and Prejudice as i felt like every descriptive word was wrong. Looking at it now, i feel like i was quite good for my first go, a lot to learn, but many weeks to learn it.
So far so good....