Between The Lines Of Life

Michael Vey: The Prisoner of Cell 25 Richard Paul Evans This review is going to be slightly different than my usual. I read this over the summer, so I'm just quickly writing up a review for a class right now.  Previously, I read only one of Richard Paul Evan's books, The Christmas Box , in fact the only reason I even picked this book up is because my aunt loves Richard Paul Evans and she told me about this one over the summer when I was staying at her place. I didn't check it out right away, instead I went home and checked it out at my public library there. My mom immediately stole it from my stack of books, and then gave it back the next day, raving about how good it was. So I put aside the other books I was reading and started reading this one. I really loved the overall feel of the book. It had just the right mix of adventure and character development. Over the course of the story, I fell in love with the main character and his friends. E...

A Discovery of Witches Deborah Harkness Pros: Good character development and story progression. I love the main character and by the end of the book I genuinely cared about the characters and what was going to happen next. Cons: There were one or two scenes in this book which would make me less likely to recommend this book to certain friends. I also hated the cliffhanger at the end, but I can live with that. Some scenes seemed to me to be a bit far-fetched, but that again is something I can live with. It is really thick, but that's normal for fiction. Overall: I'd definitely recommend it to my friends (well, most of them) and I'd have to give it 3.5 stars. Only because of the few cons I mentioned above. If you love fiction, romance, adventure, action, characters you can believe in, and a good storyline that involves a witch and a vampire, this book is perfect for you! <3Claire

Lilith              Lilith  was an interesting read, wherein the main character – Mr. Vane – walks through a mirror and ends up in a fantasy land. There, he meets a Raven who happens to be his Librarian. The Raven offers him advice; however, Mr. Vane refuses the advice and instead does what he wants. This leads to quite a bit of craziness through the course of the story. This story has a very interesting theme of learning one’s identity and becoming really alive. MacDonald appears to believe that our lives right now aren’t really life but death, we need to sleep and die in order to become alive. There is also the theme of listening to our elders, because they know better. A lot of the things that happened to Mr. Vane would never have happened if he had just listened to Raven and Eve in the first place. Life is full of mistakes, but it always turns out alright in the end. That’s important to remember as well.  ...

I've been mostly going over Anodos and Mr. Vane's stories,  Phantastes  and  Lilith,  so I thought I'd go over the similarities between the two. I've noticed a few similarities, which is probably because they were written by the same author, but I think I'll go over what I can think of. Anodos --> Wanders aimlessly, doesn't pay attention to what others tell him, gets into a lot of trouble, finally does something worthy, figures out what his shadow is, dies, learns Mr. Vane --> Refuses to accept what has happened, ignores the Raven several times, meets the Little Ones and the stupid ones, allows himself to be held a captive, saves the evil princess, ignores the Raven again, leads Little Ones in war, gets his Lona killed, finally listens to the Raven, lives a short life with Lona who has come alive, finally goes home having learned something and continues learning. Both characters seem to love to either disobey other, wiser characters or to just not k...

"We are often unable to tell people what they NEED to know, because they WANT to know something else, and would therefore only misunderstand what we said... What you call riddles are truths, and seem riddles because you are not true... And you MUST answer the riddles! ... They will go on asking themselves until you understand yourself. The universe is a riddle trying to get out, and you are holding your door hard against it." --  Lilith  page 525 of  The George MacDonald Treasury Life is a riddle, so is the Universe. We will never understand until we are Gods like Heavenly Father and have been "born again" with Him. I love this quote because it's the truth. We always misunderstand people because what we want and what he need to hear are two different things. I don't completely understand what he meant but I think the general gist of it is that in order to find out what a person needs to hear, we need to get past the barrier of what they want to hear.

"A man is as free as he makes himself, never an atom freer," answered the raven. "You have no right to make me do things against my will!" "When you have a will, you will find that no one can." "You wrong me in the very essence of my individuality!" I persisted. "If you were an individual I could not, therefore now I do not. You are but beginning to become an individual." --  Lilith  page 509 in  The George MacDonald Treasury This quote interests me. I kind of wonder exactly what MacDonald hoped readers would get out of this quote. However, what I got from it is more important at this moment. Personally, I think this means that we are only as free as our knowledge allows us to be. Individuality doesn't come until we've become who we are meant to be, and that requires knowledge. We always say that we are all free and that we have a will, but do we really? That is a very good question, of which the answer I don't know,...

"Through my tears, the whole landscape glimmered in such bewildering loveliness, that I felt as if I were entering Fairy Land for the first time, and some loving hand were waiting to cool my head, and a loving word to warm my heart. Roses, wild roses, everywhere! So plentiful were they, they not only perfumed the air, they seemed to dye it a faint rose-hue. The color floated abroad with the scent, and clomb, and spread, until the whole west blushed and glowed with the gathered incense of roses. And my heart fainted with longing in my bosom.  "Could I but see the Spirit of the Earth, as I saw once the in dwelling woman of the beech-tree, and my beauty of the pale marble, I should be content. Content! - Oh, how gladly would I die of the light of her eyes! Yea, I would cease to be, if that would bring me one word of love from the one mouth. The twilight sang around, and infolded me with sleep. I slept as I had not slept for months. I didn't wake till late in the morning;...

"I learned that it was not myself, but only my shadow, that I had lost. I learned that it is better, a thousand-fold, for a proud man to fall and be humbled, than to hold up his head in his pride and fancied innocence. I learned that he that will be a hero, will barely be a man; that he that will be nothing but a doer of his work, is sure of his manhood. In nothing was my ideal lowered, or dimmed, or grown less precious; I only saw it too plainly, to set myself for a moment beside it. Indeed, my ideal soon became my life; whereas, formerly, my life had consisted in a vain attempt to behold, if not my ideal in myself, at least myself in my ideal. Now, however, I took, at first, what perhaps was a mistaken pleasure, in despising and degrading myself. Another self seemed to arise, like a white spirit from a dead man, from the dumb and trampled self of the past. Doubtless, this self must again die and be buried, and again, from its tomb, spring a winged child; but of this my history...

"As I stood exhausted amidst the dead, after the first worthy deed of my life, I suddenly looked behind me, and there lay the Shadow, black in the sunshine. I went into the lonely tower, and there lay the useless armor of the noble youths-- supine as they."  - Phantastes  page 289 in  The George MacDonald Treasury  This is the first time Anodos has done anything worth remembering, and he's so happy and excited, but sad and defeated at the same time, then he looks behind him and the shadow is still there. All this time it's been gone and now all of a sudden the shadow is back. This is when you first begin to realize what the shadow might be. I loved this quote because it was where you really began to see his character.

"Why are all reflections lovelier than what we call reality? -- not so grand or so strong, it may be, but always lovelier? Fair as is the gliding sloop on the shining sea, the wavering, trembling, unresting sail below is fairer still. Yea, the reflecting ocean itself, reflected in the mirror, has a wondrousness about it's waters that somewhat vanishes when I turn towards itself. All mirrors are magic mirrors. The commonest room is a room in a poem when I turn to the glass... In whatever way it may be accounted for, of one thing we may be sure, that this feeling is not cheat; for there is not cheating in nature and the simple unsought feelings of the soul. There must be a truth incolved in it, though we may but in part lay hold of the meaning. Even the memories of past pain are beautiful; and past delights, though beheld only through clefts in the grey clouds of sorrow, are lovely as Fairy Land. But how have I wandered into the deeper fairyland of the soul, while as yet I onl...

Character: Anodos --> Boring, wandering around aimlessly, taking it all in Setting: Fairyland, nothing like Earth. Can't be compared to our lives. Textual: Language and setting=beautiful Page 240 of  The George MacDonald Treasury Why do you think MacDonald would present a world in which you die of desire? Longing Can't do anything about it Dissatisfied with our life right now Can be good or bad Lack of something in your life Paradox Missing someone/thing Long to fill an empty space Urgency Painful Innate feelings Gospel answers Love Companionship Happiness Make us want to fulfill our life and and fill the spaces in our heart/soul Can't control/long for something you have no control over hoping reaching for or working towards Those are just a few notes I kept during a class discussion. They're sort of enigmatic. I guess they kinda/sorta would only make sense to me, and perhaps some who have read Phantastes. Anyway, it was a ...

"Ah! that is always the way with you men; you believe nothing the first time; and it is foolish enough to let mere repetition convince you of what you consider in itself unbelievable."  - Phantastes  page 199 in  The George MacDonald Treasury I chose this quote because I thought it revealed something important that we should all think about seriously. I've come to notice that many people won't believe anything unless it's been proved, and not just once, but two or three times. What's not to understand or believe I don't completely understand, but it's the way of things it seems. I think we should always keep that in mind and learn to believe a bit more, we may find that what we need is a little faith to believe what is going on around us without needing more proof than necessary.

Description of Project: For my project this semester, I decided to write a series of blog posts. On these blog posts I'll do one of two things: either I'll write a short essay on a theme found in my reading or from another work we've read this semester, or I'll post a quote from one of them and talk about the theme and the relevance of the quote. Chosen Book for Final Unit: The book I chose to read for the final unit is  Lilith  from  The George MacDonald Treasury . Quote from Lilith:  (Page 505 in  The George MacDonald Treasury  second to last paragraph) ""You did me no wrong," he returned. "Calling me a raven, or thinking me one, allowed me existence, which is the sum of what one can demand of his fellow-beings. Therefore, in return, I will give you a lesson: -- No one can say he is himself, until first he knows that he IS, and then what HIMSELF is. In fact, nobody is himself, and himself is nobody. There is more in it than you can see...

This one is for a totally different class altogether. For my Major Authors class we've been reading works by JRR Tolkien and George MacDonald. For our end of semester project we get to choose what we will do. Someone asked about writing a series of blog posts, and my professor said that would be fine. Since I already have this blog, I figured I might as well. So, I will probably be writing a series of blog posts in the next 3 weeks. It'll be a series of 10-20 blog posts altogether. I hope you enjoy them! The main works we focused on this semester: The Silmarillion  by JRR Tolkien Thomas Wingfold, Curate  by George MacDonald Phantastes  by George MacDonald -and for the last unit, we chose something by one of them to read on our own- Lilith  by George MacDonald I've decided that for these blog posts I'll either write  mini essays  like what he has us write over different  subjects and themes  within each of these books, or I'll post...

For a class I'm taking up at school, I was supposed to give a presentation on something from a list of topics. One was Family Reading: Learning Through Books. I decided to slightly tweak the topic and go with: Teaching Children a Love of Reading. They aren't all that different but I really want to focus on children within the family especially. I found several articles (which I'll post links to below) that talk about teaching a love of reading. I'll talk about ten of my favorite tips found in these articles. Read aloud to your kids  from a young age. The sooner you get them hooked on books the better. My mom used to read aloud to me when I was younger. She'd even do different voices and practically act out the whole story to me. This got me interested in the books and eventually I decided to learn to read all on my own so that I wouldn't just be able to read when she was available to read to me. I still enjoy listening to her read aloud to me but not as o...

For the first time in months, I finished a book! I've actually read this one before, but I thought I'd read it again during my Thanksgiving Break. So, here goes another book review! Peeps by Scott Westerfeld This book was amazing! I loved it! I wouldn't recommend reading it if you have a queasy stomach though, since he describes parasites in detail. Good characters and definitely a good read when you are looking to get away from school books. I'd definitely recommend it for most of my friends and my sister! Sorry this review isn't very organized, I'm writing it up really quick before I pull out my greenbean casserole and heat up some thanksgiving leftovers. Happy late Thanksgiving! Enjoy! <3Claire

Eon Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman I don't have this book laying around right now to take a picture with, because I recommended it to my sister (who is now reading it I believe!) So I found a picture of the cover on google instead.  I originally checked this book out believing it was the first book in a series which my brother gave me the 5th book of, I read it and then realized I had been wrong but I'm glad I found this book. I immensely enjoyed the story, the world, and the characters. I absolutely love Dragons, and so I was immediately attracted to the cover! The claws holding the disk-like object was intriguing. I like how red was the most-used color on the cover, since this has significant weight in the book. Pros: Good characters, amazing background, story moves forward at a good pace Cons: None that I can think of at the moment, other than several parts of the book where I felt like tearing my hair out at some of Eon's actions. Overal...

Factotum D.M. Cornish Since I've already covered the reasons why I checked this book out and you already know I loved the first book, I'll just cut to the chase on this one! In this one Rossamund goes to work for the Branden Rose. This is also the last book in the series, so as you can guess quite a lot happens! I loved this one because of the new characters and events that take place in this one. Pros: Characters were well-written. Seemed fairly understandable.  Cons: Left me wanting more. Sometimes things happened a little too fast or slow, but I still enjoyed it! Because of this, I give it 4 stars out of 5. I loved Rossamund and the Branden Rose, even though I didn't like some things that happened. I'd still recommend it to any friends who enjoy reading about monsters and monster hunters!  Enjoy Reading! <3Claire

On my blog , I've added a new page with links to my other blogs, and a couple blogs by my best friend. Be sure to check it out!  <3Claire

For those of you who follow this blog, I'm sure you've noticed less book reviews. Well, I'm gonna finish the book reviews for the books I've read this next week and have them scheduled to post every week. I won't be reading anything other than stuff for classes this semester, so I won't be reading any more books I can post to this blog until Winter vacation, at which time I'll definitely post more reviews! Feel free to message me any time, and I'll get to it as soon as I can. I won't be posting much come 2 weeks from today, but I may post random funny posts I find on   my tumblr blog  that has something to do with books I love, like I've been doing!  Hope you've enjoyed this update, and please! Feel free to message me whenever! Send me book suggestions, and I'll add them to my list, which I will eventually update on this blog. Thanks! <3Claire