Finished A Long Way Gone!

Finally I finished the book, especially since the ending was great. The war was over and Sierra Leone managed to put down the rebellion. Child recruiting was stopped, and the rebels are now a political party. Ishmael Beah was rescued by UNICEF officers and was later on taken to his uncle's house in Benin, due to all of the violence. He stayed in his uncle's house for a while and returned to Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone (quite ironic right?). The town was raided by both the RUF and the government. He later on escaped to Guinea and he flew to the United States, New York to be specific.

Before he came to the U.S., he was called to a UN meeting to talk about his experiences in the war and how it went for him. An interview was set up and he told everything from the drugs that he took - to the people that he slaughtered. 

He later returned to Sierra Leone with Mohammed, his new brother, after he lost his family in the war. But there was a new attack on the way back, this time, it was the Sierra Leonian Army which attacked Freetown. The attack didn't manage to turn into another war though, but it was still scary for the people, especially the one that lived during the civil war. 

Ishmael Beah now lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is now a UNICEF member and a human rights activist in the United Nations. He continues to go through the struggle to make child recruitment history and to have children liberated and free of intense work or serving in the army.

This book was great compared to many books I read. And I was actually interested in this, especially since this is a non-fiction book. I would probably give this a 5 star rating due to the amazing story and its touching feeling to many children who are either living in free countries or child recruiting countries in this world.

Child Soldiers! Hate It!

I'm still on A Long Way Gone, but while I was reading this book, I started to think about something. Something terrible. There were child soldiers in the book and there are still child soldiers in countries today. Think about this! Children that are our age being legally taken away from their families by the government, and are trained to kill people (well, there are ones ho are just crazy and would have no problem killing people). But why would any government not want the children of their people not have a good life and just want them to join the military? That's just messed up and intense for anyone.

As of today, there are only 14 countries that have child soldiers, and the ones who recruit them are mostly the rebels or terrorists in those countries. But that is not enough, there are still many children that have only known how to shoot people. In 2001, the number of countries with child soldiers was more than double of the countries that have child soldiers today. Here is a map of the countries that have child soldiers today.

This was exactly what happened at the end of my reading of this book. He was taken by the government and he was given an AK-47 and expected to go out and kill some rebels. Honestly, the children didn't want to be in the army, but wanted to because the rebels would pay for all the people that they killed and the number of families that they destroyed. He ended up losing his friends, for sometime, and he was alone with a bunch of random children and only some adults that he was sent with. 

In this country, there's something called a shooting license and a legal firearms age. So don't expect us to carry M4A1s and Scars and shooting people. But if you go to the countries that are in red in the map, expect the government to hand you a machine gun or an RPG and to tell you to shoot people. To me, this whole idea of child soldiers is messed up and devastating. I don't want to see people as old as me in the battlefields or me even being in one! It's terrible that this still exists. I actually feel bad for the children that have to spend their childhoods with weapons.

What do you think about child soldiers? Should it be taken out? What do you guys think about the miserable children in these areas?

A Long Way Gone, Continuation

So I guess that the country went in chaos and all that matters now is survival. Ishmael got lost and he couldn't find his brothers or his friends. He went on hungry, tired, and very sad because he thought that no one would be there, due to all of the chaos going on in this country from the war. But at least he found new friends that would help him along the way and hopefully escape this place. He went into the woods and went to many villages to find food, water, and shelter. In 2 of his villages, it seemed as if no one really cared about the rebellions and no one even had the thought of 'will they kill us next?' or 'what should we do when they come?'. There were having parties everyday. The only thing that was able to stop them (for a moment) was the minute when Saidu, one of the boys, died in his sleep, and his funeral. So they left and all of them wanted to stop and cry, except for Ishmael, he wouldn't shed one, he can't. He just had to move on.

Personally, I couldn't imagine this happening to me and I hope that it wouldn't. But i can still relate myself to the author. For example, no matter what happens or what blocks him, he will never give up. I am the same. Send me into a war-zone and I would rather be in a cemetery than kneel before the enemy with my hands behind my head. I am not exaggerating this will happen if i am stuck in the same situation as him. Also, when something bad happens in that kind of place, I will pretty much act like I have a cold heart or am heartless. I normally let all the sufferings pass by and stick to what I have to do. So he and I have some things in common.

One thing that still bothers me is that they haven't even thought about trying to get to a radio station and get help or just contact any rescue team. Also, I am still wondering when he actually gets taken by the government and becomes a boy soldier. Because he and his friends are acting kind of like fugitives that are trying not to get caught.

Child Drafting From a Boy Soldier's Life

So I'm back and I decided to read a non-fiction book for one these few years. The book that I am reading is A Long Way Gone. It is a story about the author living his life as a soldier when he was between 13-16 years old, and how he had to live on as a young military unit before he was sent to the U.S. by the UNICEF organization.

Just for the background, this book was published about 5 years after the Sierra Leone civil war ended. The civil war was a battle between the RUF(Revolutionary United Front, the rebels) and the rest of the government and the United Nations. The rebels planned to take over Sierra Leone and wanted to attack other nations as well, making them 'terrorists' to these nations. The war was over in 2002 and the RUF was eventually a political party and the attacks stopped.

The author, Ishmael Beah, was born in a small town named Mogbwemo, in Sierra Leone. He was one of the child soldiers that were forced to fight against the rebels due to the government's orders. He fought in the war for 3 years and was later on rescued by the UNICEF and stopped at 16 years old. He had no idea how many rebels he shot and he even stated that most of the people he killed were children that were his age that were fighting for the RUF. He now lives in the United states and is now a human rights activist and worked for UNICEF. 

There's even an interview of Ishmael Beah on CBS News to talk about his experiences as a child soldier in the Sierra Leone civil war. Check..It..Out!

Now let's get back to the book.

Even though I only read the first 50 pages of the book, it was still a good book. Also, the action and the violence that was expected in the story-line, started off near the very beginning of the book. Ishmael's friends' teachers warned him and the town that "The rebels had attacked the mining areas in the afternoon. The sudden outburst of gunfire had caused people to run for their lives in different directions" (Beah, 11). That was kind of too early to put gunshots and massacres to these innocent people. But the rebels probably just wanted what was in these places and the resources that can be of use to them.

But the casualties didn't seem as harmful to the people at first, but as they were looking around the town, it was devastating. Anyone that lived there was either taken away as a hostage, a soldier to the RUF, or was just shot dead. The town ended up being deserted and was in ruins. The citizens of Mogdwebo saw many casualties, but Beah only went to detail about two of them. The first one was, when a man tried to escape the town with his family, "The rebels shot at his vehicle, killing all his family" (Beah, 13). vomiting and crying, he laid there due to the loss of his family. The second one was "A woman who carried her baby on her back..."Her child had been shot dead as she ran for her life" (Beah, 13). many more casualties were in that one town. These consisted of parents carrying their dead children, families that were murdered in their houses and more casualties took place. If you were in that place, you would be SHOCKED and SCARED (unless you're a demon's best friend).

To be honest, If a country was allowed to take away boys that were my age to be child soldiers, that would be one country on my list of countries...that I would NEVER go to. I never had thoughts about joining the military or ever will think about doing it. So don't ever ask me if I would even think about joining the U.S. military. I don't want to risk my life for a crazy job like that, especially since I can do other things that would help people that don't need a body-bag in the future. And I bet none of you guys would do any of this either. 

Speaking of child soldier countries. There are still many countries that support this act of dragging children into the military. Many African countries take boys away into the army, the same goes with many Asian and Pacific countries. I don't know about South America, but the only ones that go against this are most of North America, almost all of Europe, almost none of Africa and Asia, and Japan and Australia. This is terrible. Children fighting wars at the age where they should be learning? Why couldn't the world stop this madness? Why is this needed?

How about you guys share somethings about the idea of drafting kids and having children fight this war. Hopefully you guys think this is a terrible act and should be removed.

Review, The Serpent's Shadow

So I'm currently not reading anything because I don't know what to read, especially since I finished all of the books that were like the Percy Jackson books, and that the last book I read, which was Allegiant, had a terrible ending to one of my favorite series by killing off the main character and leaving the city in despair. So, I guess I am going to do a book review of a book that had a FAR better ending than Allegiant, and it is also the last of its series. It's called The Serpent's Shadow.

The book itself was a great book, and the series was good as well. At least it doesn't trash the main character due to his/her death. In fact, all the antagonists either become good people if they were controlled, or they were just annihilated; literally!

It started out as Carter and Sadie just doing the same old, same old by working to get the suidents of the nomes to be safe and to help them become magicians like the two main chartacters and their friends. And then Apophis, the god of chaos strikes back and the world was on the margin of not being obliterated be evile, chaos, death and destruction. They find out that they can bring their mom back. The rest of the story goes on with Carter and Sadie try to find out how they can kill Apophis and their battle with him.

I decided to make this a blog about Fahrenheit 451 because I wanted to take a break on reading my own books that I wanted to read. If you read my previous blog, you kind of know where I am heading with that and why I chose to do this instead of continuing on.

This book was actually good for a book that I am supposed to read for a class. Previously, the books that I was supposed to read were just The Schwa Was Here, The Outsiders (both OK books), Bronx Masquerade, and Whirligig (Both REALLY TERRIBLE books). Also, this book was better than some books that I have read in my own time (except for anything that has any relation to the Percy Jackson series).

What I liked about this book was first, it was a book about burning books and having a society that was messed up. This kind of reminds me of the society in The Hunger Games. People getting killed for the sole purpose of entertainment, no freedom of what you can do, and the fact that people don't know what to do, because of the government. In Fahrenheit 451, the people would run over other people because they don't want to be bored, and they thought that they were happy by just watching TV for the rest of their lives.

Then, Montag came around, and once he met Clarrise, he realized that there was something wrong with this place. He needed to fix this and make it so that people will have freedom and that this chaos will end. It was almost like playing with fire is a good thing, especially when there are books around you and they are supposed to be burnt. Later on, he manages to kill an old lady and he found out that Clarrise's family was taken away.

After Clarrise, the only person he liked, was dead, he met another guy named Faber, who was a retired English professor. He would act like Clarrise in the rest of the book, except he would try to take down the firemen for good and not just change or rehabilitate them. He and Montag would make it a mission to end the unfair torture that the firemen are doing and to take down the government that was behind all of this mess.

The rest of the story is about how Montag tries to get the mission going and what he does to save the people who have a mind, and what the government does to the city.

Finished Allegiant, But really bad ending

DO NOT READ THIS UNLESS YOU READ ALLEGIANT!

That was the worst ending for a book. It seriouslly ends up with most people dying in the book. What's the point of THAT!? It starts with Tori dying in the beginning, then some factionless guards get shot down (ok that was probably a good thing in the book and they actually deserved it). Tris shuts down the city and gets a bullet in her head, the doctors purposefully kill Uriah in front of his parents, and then everyone forgets what had happened in the city and to them. Plus, Tobias goes around like a baby and starts bawling for a year because his girlffriend Tris died in the fight. And I thought he was a man to not do that.

All I can say about this book is that the ending was just complete crap if you ask me about it. Plus, it just puts this series down in a pit of despair for all I care. I mean seriously, the very next page before when the city shuts down, it goes like "The moment Tris falls into the net...." and then Tobias starts to cry. Totally screwed up!

So all I can do is forget it, since it was mostly disappointing to anyone who likes the Divergent series and pretty much threw the book into a hole. Now this COULD be a book that I would like to burn (thinking of Fahrenheit 451), since I don't want this in my sight again.

Allegiant! Finally!

Hey Hey HEY! I just finished The Serpent's Shadow and the ending was great in that book. Just don't ask me about what the ending is because iIwill NEVER tell you no matter how hard you try to persuade me too. Trust me, it's worth not knowing it before you read it. Sadly, that's the end of the Kane Chronicles. So no more of Carter and Sadie video recording their adventures of bringing order to Earth and destroying chaos (They already did that! That's kind of why it ended as a trilogy and The Serpent's Shadow was the last book!)But guess what!

I'm finally in the last book in the Divergent Trilogy!

Don't speak too soon about what happens in this book, because I got some news about this book. The good news is that I am going to finish this trilogy and won't be stressed out when I make anymore blogs. The bad news is that this book is the WORST book for Divergent fans, so I would take a break and read another book after reading Insurgent and before reading Allegiant, which I am reading right now. This was what I did, and now, I am ready to face this book, whether it will make me rate this the best book ever, or will disappoint me and make me hate this.

Also, I always wondered what the books would be like in the view of another character other than Tris. She was the person who was in first person, and everything about the book was in her perspective, which could potentially make the whole story biased because you can only read the story in one person's ideas or perspective instead of hearing what other characters think how this story is to people. Well, this book has Tobias's perspective along with Tris's perspective. Now you can know the story based on another person's thoughts. But... this still isn't good enough because there are only two characters narrating the story instead of many characters. This actually reminds me of the Kane Chronicles trilogy, since in those books, Carter and Sadie do all of the narrating and in this book, Tris and Tobias do all the narrating. 

On the bright side, the book isn't third-person, or else it would be He said... or She said... or They said... because that would make the book kind of annoying and it wouldn't really bring the characters 'to life' since no one knows what is going on in the characters' minds or what are they thinking about what is happening around them. 

Now let cut to the chase and talk about what is happening in the book. NOT! But I still read some of it, I'll just wait until I read over 1/2 of the book to talk about what is happening and what crazy plan they will do after the "factionless take over the government" HINT HINT.



By the way, Divergent came out in theaters. So watch it if you really like the Divergent trilogy.

Here's the trailer

The Serpent's Shadow

Think about this for a second. You and your sibling (brother if you're a girl and sister if you're a boy) lived seperately because your parents divorces many months ago. You finally meey with your siblings somewhere like a museum. Then you realize that you have many abilities that could help you and possibly help the others. Your dad finally finds your mon somewhere in Europe and they finally get back together. Don't get excited about this for long and think that the story's over...

...Because here's the catch, the moment your family reunites and goes back to where you met your sibling, something chaotic happens in that place and your parents get vaporized and they will never come back. How would you feel? You'd feel sad and angry about this, right? But then you succeed in getting revenge and here's what you find out from a friend.

THERE IS A CHANCE TO BRING YOUR MOM BACK. ("Sorry, the dad's dead for good")

So far, Carter and Sadie have gone throughout this scenario all the way from The Red Pyramid to The Serpent's Shadow, which I am reading right now. Carter and Sadie are now left with their uncle Amos, Zia (Fire magician and Carter's crush), Anubis (Sadie's Boyfriend and the God of Death), Thoth (The God of all Knowledge), Horus (The God of war and future king of Gods), Isis (The Goddess of life), Walt (a creationist and Sadie's crush), and the students of the First Nome. To learn more about the book and the trilogy, Click HERE.

The Khopesh Sheath represents Carter , which is a curved sword because Carter was born to fight in his later years to save the world and this weapon was his first choice when he was in combat. This was also the weapon that the Ancient Egyptian warriors used in combat, and this book is like The Heroes of Olympus series, except it has Egyptian gods instead.





Horus would be the same, except he was born as the God of war, just like Ares in Greek mythology. Carter could channel power and get more magic from Horus because he was a resource of magic to him and they both had almost everything in common. But what would represent him more is the ankh because it has the Symbol of Horus on it. Also, Carter's amulet had the same ankh as the picture, and he used it to call Horus or to channel his power. Horus was the strongest god in Ancient Egypt, and whenever enemies struck, the eye would protect the wearer and destroy those enemies, just like an extreme warrior would.

A shield would Represent Sadie because she was into both restoration and combat magic and her magic was normally used to block attacks from enemies or protect her friends from grave danger. Every time she and Carter were in battle. Sadie would summon force fields or other spells that were able to deflect any other spells back at the attacker. Also, she knows spells that were able to restore an area or a region back to its original form and to remove all signs of chaos in that area or region.





A Sycamore Tree would represent Isis because this is one of the symbols that were used to identify her back in Ancient Egypt. Also, Isis was the goddess of fertility, motherhood, and magic, which would ultimately make her the Goddess of Life. Her magic was mainly based around life, nature, creation, and hospitality. But she managed to bring in some chaos into her spells. One spell, which was Ma'at, a spell that brought back order to everything in the area of the caster, has the potential to kill or severely hurt the caster. This was what happened to Sadie every time she tried to use this spell or any other chaotic spells. 

These were just the prime characters that were in this book because the story is revolved around Carter and Sadie, and Horus and Isis were the ones that have brought them to this state and this book. To learn about these gods, Click HERE.

Why don't you think of some symbols that would fit these people and gods that I have mentioned? Don't worry, I'll symbolize and talk about them myself as well, I just won't be doing this now. Maybe Later.

Oh... Leave the symbolization stuff in the comments below if you think of any.

I have two favorite books, but can't decide which one is better than the other. The first one was The Son of Neptune from the Heroes of Olympus series, my other one is Divergent from the Divergent series. These two have been the best books I have read, even though I read The Son of Neptune two years ago and read Divergent over the summer that just passed. They both are action packed, have extreme events, and suspense happens very often in these two books.

 

The Son of Neptune was written by Rick Riordan and published on October 4th, 2011. This was the 2nd book in the Heroes of Olympus. It recieved 3 awards and was put in the #1 NY Times Bestsellers list. What happens in this book is after 3 demons were trying to hunt down percy, he ends up in Camp Jupiter, a place similar to that of Camp Half Blood. The big difference was that Camp Jupiter was Roman (Jupiter is the Roman king of the gods), and that Camp Half Blood was Greek. Percy tries to get help from the people of Camp Jupiter, who didn't respect him because he a descendant of Poseidon, to defeat the demons that were trying to kill him, and will eventually kill everyone in the camp. The story would just go on with battles and rescues from the people at Camp Half Blood. This book was completely action packed and had a lot of suspense because people had a good chance of dying unexpectedly all throughout this story. For more info, click HERE.

 

Divergent was written by Veronica Roth and published in May 1st, 2012. I don't know what awards this book received, but it should get awards for being an amazing book. This is the 1st book in the Divergent series. It starts with a girl named Beatrice Prior as Abnegation. In her test, the result taker tells her that she is divergent, which means that she has traits that fir into more than one faction, she fits into Abnegation, Dauntless, and Erudite. She chooses her faction and she goes through many painful tests during her initiation, but she still had to hide her divergence. The rest of the book is how she goes through the initiation and her hiding her divergence. For more info click HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why don't you guys try to decide which one is better, or at least help me pick one to be the best book for me. Leave your choices and reasons, if you read both of these book, in the comments below.

As of now, I don't know what is happening in Romeo and Juliet because it just ended up with Mercutio and Tybalt dead and Romeo banished. This is starting to confuse me, and is making me wonder if this story will end up with only a few people dead or if people will slowly start to die and Verona ends up in chaos. I'm starting to get interested in this story for once, because the beginning was almost nonsense, confusing, and really boring to me. I guess Act III is when the play becomes what is expected.

 

What basically happened in the rest of Act II was Mercutio and Tybalt have a fight and Tybalt ends up killing Mercutio by stabbing him in the lung or heart. Then Romeo gets rrevenge and kills Tybalt, making the Capulets go into chaos about their nephew's death and Romeo. So he ends up being banished from Verona, and to never come back to the city ever again. So I am guessing that Romeo and Juliet will elope and flee to the forests to get married, and will probably end up dying there. I am predicting that Acts IV and V will be in the forest or somewhere outside of Verona and the very end will be a funeral in the heart of Verona.

These are just some of my predictions of what will happen, what are yours?

I am going to take a break from House of Hades this week and talk about Romeo and Juliet. This story was widely read and very popular out of all of the plays that were written in the 1600s. So it should be a great play in comparison to the rest. The first parts were a little confusing because it just starts with the Capulets and the Montagues fighting and you never know why this happens. It then goes onto the children of the Capulets and the Montagues. So it just transfers on from one character to another, and Romeo and Juliet had a very unrealistic love because they barely knew each others and that will not make a typical person fall in love with someone else. It has to take a lot of time before you know if they will fall in love with you or not, and that never happened in this story.

But the content was actually good, which was probably why this story was so popular back then and even today. The story was okay to me, but the romance didn't make sense because they fell instantly after they saw each others. Also, out of all the characters other than these two, only the children were effective in this book, and the nurse. The parents (Lords an Ladies of the houses) had almost little or no effect on the story because they only fought and they haven;t intervened in Romeo's and Juliet's relationship so far. Overall, I would give this story a 3/5.

I just started reading The House of Hades about 3 days ago. I wanted to take a break from the Divergent series and go back to my former favorite series. Before I heard about the Divergent series. I read every book in the Percy Jackson series, The Heroes of Olympus, and the Kane Chronicles. All I needed to read was The Serpent's Shadow and The House of Hades. But once one of my friends Told me about the book for the summer reading project, I went on reading it and when I did, I completely forgot about the other two books that I needed to read. Once I finished Divergent and Insurgent, I felt like going back and reading The House of Hades instead of reading Allegiant because I heard that the final book of the Divergent series was disappointing to people who like the series. So, I wanted to save that surprise for later and finish my other Favorite series first so that I can get that off the hook and focus on Allegiant.

As usual, this is what is going on in this book so far. the gang of demigods are travelling to the underworld on Leo's ship, Argo II, but they need to defeat Gaea and the titan guards to enter the underworld. The beginning pretty much shows that Half Blood Hill teamed up with Camp Jupiter to take down Hades's Titans and to save the Olympians once and for all. Gaea ends up almost destroying the ship, but the demigods flee to the gate so that Gaea can't kill them. They end up finding other demon like creatures and undead warriors that surround them and try to kill them. After that, they try to get in the gate, but The ship ends up encountering severe turbulence and throws Percy, Annabeth, and Hazel Overboard, leaving Jason, Leo, and some other people on the ship.

The author, Rick Riordan, is one of the most famous authors for the Percy Jackson, The Heroes of Olympus, and the Kane Chronicles series. Currently, Riordan is the #1 New York Times Bestseller for the Percy Jackson series. Another series that topped the New York Times Bestsellers was the 39 Clues Series. He continues to expand all of his series that he made, and the fifth book for the Heroes of Olympus will be The Blood of Olympus. So, I will probably read that the moment it comes out.

The Setting is neat the Titans' home and the Gates of Death (Which is the entrance to Hades' home. A few demigods went there to defeat the Titans and save the gods once and for all. Those demigods were Percy, Annabeth, Leo, Hazel, Jason, and more. The setting is more eerie and dark, and could be compared to any setting in a horror movie because those who enter the place normally die and never return. Also, the beginning is supposed to be one of the scariest or craziest parts of that king of movie, and the beginning of this book is that the top three main characters in the book end up falling into a pit and they think that they will die and will end up putting both of the demigod camps into flames.

I finished the book Insurgent over winter break. This book probably had the most suspense compared to any book that I have ever read. Everytime, Tris and her friends do crazy things like invade the Erudite headquarters 24/7, at where they could die easily. they spy on the erudite and each time that they do that, at least one person gets captured or killed by the Erudite. one time. Also, you will never know what will happen to anyone in the next second. At one second they could get shot in the face, tied to a tree or a pole, or facing execution. the Dauntless leader's death was somewhat expecting because he as caught and he faced execution. But the Erudite leader's death came out of nowhere, it looks like Tori, one of the new Dauntless leaders, has shot Jeanine, the Erudite leader, and has taken down the Erudite faction. Also, the factionless attempting to take over the government was out of nowhere because the leader, Tobias's mom, let her son take the choice and he said to just take out the Erudite.

You might be thinking that I am going to read Allegiant next, but i want to catch up with the percy jackson series and read The House of Hades next. I really need to take a break from this series, even though it is so good. Also I keep hearing that Allegiant was a disappointing book, and is a very sad ending. I didn't listen to them because that would spoil the whole story, so I ditched the series, hoping that i will forget all about what I heard. Before I read Divergent, the Percy Jackson type books were my favorite books. I want to catch up, since I still need to read The Serpent's Shadow and The House of Hades. Once I finish these two books, I will get Back to Allegiant. Until then Here are some questions about the characters and the book as a whole.

Would you want to read this book in the future? If you read it already, how was the book to you?

Construct a theme for this book if you can or if you read it.