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...