Book Recommendation: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent is about a society in which people are placed into one of five factions: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Erudite, and Dauntless at age 16 where they must live for the rest of their lives. These factions are divided by certain values in life which include selflessness, bravery, intelligence, peace, and honesty.

It doesn’t sound so bad to start off with, but the people in this society are required to seamlessly fit into only one of these groups, and those who fit into several ones are considered dangerous, and labeled Divergent, just like the main character Tris is.

I personally enjoyed this book, for one, because I, love dystopian books, and two, I really liked the characters. No one wants to read a book where you can’t stand the main character. It’s stopped me from reading a book before, and I personally really like all of the characters in Divergent, even the annoying ones.

None of them were overly stereotypical or completely weird, but they all had realistic flaws and strengths. From Tri, Caleb, Jeannine, Christina, Al, Peter, Will, Eric, Four, and Uriah, Lynn, and Marlene (who I am very upset got cut out of the movie adaptation), all of the characters, no matter how annoying, were all well developed with detailed personalities, which was something I appreciated about it.  The main character Tris, although not my favorite character in the book *SPOLIER* decides to leave her family in Abnegation to pursue a life in the Dauntless faction.

Although she has some troubles adjusting the new life style at first, she does lean to fit in eventually, and eventually becomes the top of her peers, which was the one thing that annoyed me about the book.

Tri came from the Abnegation faction, which is the faction based off of selflessness, which meant she was deprived of many of the things in life most people enjoy, such as flavorful food. This also mean that although not in Amity, the peace faction, she did not have much training in fighting and physical things along these lines. The fact that she out of nowhere became the top of her class in fighting wise and “facing her fears” over the Dauntless ones who have trained their whole lives for the initiation, just seems unrealistic and thrown into the plot just because she was the main character.

The book is not only entertaining, but also sends a deeper message to the readers. This book shows how people in society are sometimes required to think in narrow-minded ways, and certain people who are stereotyped aren’t allowed to think in ways other than the way society thinks they should.

A movie adaptation of this movie is scheduled to come out sometime in early 2014. The trailed is already released, and although it looks accurate, as I mention earlier, I am still upset that they cut my three favorite characters, Uriah, Marlene, and Lynn out of the movie.

If you plan on reading this book, this is the perfect time to pick it up since the third book in the series, Allegiant, just came out!

~K.M.D

Young Adult Literature Today: Dystopian

Dystopian is probably one of the most popular genres in young adult literature today. After the huge success of the series of The Hunger Games, many other dystopian novels followed in its afterglow including Divergent, The Maze Runner, and Delirium.

Although some zombie novels could come under the same category as being dystopian, I consider zombie novels as a separate genre in itself and therefore will not focus much on them in this segment. 

One of the major qualities of a dystopian is a post/pre apocalyptic society is which there is usually a corrupt government system that enforces rules and regulations that would be looked down upon in modern day society.

Most dystopian novels are satires, that will mock certain elements in society be making fun of them in either a humorous or serious way. One of the classic dystopian books is 1984 by George Orwell. In this society people are constantly watched by the government authority called “big brother” and must submit to all their rules, or else they will be forced to. This book deals with many aspects of society including lies, fear, and anti-institutionalism.

One of my favorite aspects about dystopian literature is that the possibilities for dystopian books are really vast. The amount of things that could stem a dystopian society can come from anywhere. With all of the things that are wrong in society today, people can come up with many things to write about.

Dystopian books also tend to portray a deeper meaning within them, which is another great aspect of this genre.

With all of the positives being said, there are also some downsides to the dystopian genre. Since dystopian is a very large and popular genre, it is also become very clichéd, just like the paranormal romance genre. Although dystopian books don’t have their own section the bookstore yet, like the paranormal romance genre, it won’t be very long before it does. Following the huge success of The Hunger Games, many authors saw its success and want to jump on the bandwagon in order to gain the amount of success it gained.

The other thing that is my pet peeve about dystopian books is that every single dystopian book gets one way or another compared back to The Hunger Games. This is basically because The Hunger Games was the first dystopian book that ever got a lot of popularity so people feel the need to compare every single dystopian book back to it because apparently comparing it back to The Hunger Games measures its success or something. A lot of the popular dystopian books such as The Maze Runner and Divergent are very often compared back to The Hunger Games just because they are dystopian books, and really have nothing in common other than their genre.

Dystopian is one of my favorite genres of literature, not only to read, but to write as well and I am hoping to write a dystopian novel sometime in the near future!

~K.M.D.

Ask the Author! #3

Today’s question comes from Sylvanie Van Huesen.

If a movie was being made, 1) Would you want to be involved, 2) How would you want to be involved(actor, director, producer, costumer designer) and 3) Given the choice, who would you cast as the characters?

I absolutely love this question just because it’s something I’ve thought about many times before. 

I’m going to answer this question in regards to The Unusual Isles.

Firstly, yes, I would definitely want to be involved with it; probably mostly as a screen writer to make sure that they don’t screw anything up like they do to most book adaptations. That’s why I think that this book in particular would work better as a mini TV series because there is a lot of action in the book and not a whole lot that you can take out without it majorly affecting the plot in some kind of way. I also think being an actor would be cool, just because I would love to get to experience something like that. I would be happy playing any of the characters, but if given the choice, I would want to be Ellary just because she is the main female lead in the book, and she’s also one of my favorite characters.

For the twin brothers Luke and Bryce, I would want Dylan and Cole Sprouse to play them, just because they fit the physical description so well.

For Keane, I would want Dayo Okeniyi, who played Thresh in the Hunger Games to play him. Keane’s character is similar to Thresh in terms of personality wise so I think he would do a good job at playing him.

For Maddie, I think Anna Kendrick would do a good job playing her. Although she doesn’t match Maddie’s physical description, I think she would do a good job playing her character wise.

For Ellary, I’m not really sure who I would want just because she’s one my favorite characters and I’m really particular about her. The person I think who would do the closest job of what I would want form Ellary would probably be Diana Argon.

Harvey I would love to see played by Woody Harrelson. I think that he would be great at playing the crazy character that Harvey is and also bring a bit a comic relief to his character.

For Brooke, I think Vanessa Marano from Switched at Birth would be the best for her character.

*note: I do wish that most of these actors would be younger so they were actual high school age, or at least around that age.

**You can find some descriptions of the characters on an earlier blog post or on my Facebook page.

I have thought about who I would want cast, at least for certain characters.

The rest of the character I can’t think of anyone to play them at the time, or just don’t really see any well known actor playing them.

~K.M.D

September Update (Update #4)

I have one word for everyone. iPad. This thing has been the single biggest distraction for me ever since our school decided everyone should have them. Was I skeptical of the iPad at first? Yes I was. Did I complain about not even wanting it in the first place? Yes I did. Now, do I use it almost 50% of my day? Yes I do.

It’s almost come to the point where my iPad is a replacement for my laptop. It’s much more convenient to pull out, and it had a much longer battery life.

This is really bad for my writing just because that whenever I turned on my laptop before, I would feel guilty that I wasn’t working on my story and I might look at a page or two. Now that I’m not even turning on my laptop, I don’t even feel that guilt.

This is not only a distraction for my writing, but also for my school work as well. I’ll tell myself, “I’ll just take a second to check on my Dragonvale game or check my Youtube subscriptions” and then two hours later, I’m still on my iPad and I’ve accomplished nothing.

So basically, the whole month of September, I’ve accomplished nothing other than looking into copyrights and self publishing companies, which although is very useful, has not helped my make any progress on any of my writing.

~K.M.D.

Books I Read as a Kid: Part 1

This is a new segment I am going to start where I go over certain books I read when I was younger and why I liked them so much.

First on the list of books I read as a kid is The Saddle Club series. The Saddle Club was a series that I picked up when I was in about fourth to fifth grade, which was around the time that I was really into equestrian things. I'm pretty sure that the only reason I read this book series was because I was really into horseback riding and I really wanted to be like the girls in the book. I had only been riding for a couple years, didn't have a horse, and only took lessons two times a month so the idea of doing shows and being able to ride horses everyday was exciting to me. I did also like them because even though the books centered around the same plot, the books were all different. There were so many books in the series that I almost never ran out of books to read, and I really liked them because I could read them in any order I wanted, and it didn't really make a difference. I would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves horseback riding.

Another series I read when I was younger was the Nancy Drew series. Now, this wasn't the normal Nancy Drew series that everyone else read, but this was sort of a spin off series where Nancy Drew was like an eleven year old girl who solved mysteries in her own neighborhood. The reason I think I related to this book more, was because Nancy Drew was more my age, and the mysteries she solved, even though they were small, were realistic and fun to read about. Now this series, like the saddle club, had a large amount of books in it, so many that I never got around to reading all of them, and it was also a series I could read in any order I wanted. I'm not sure if this series is still published, and I don't think it is, but I would recommend it to any young girls because the Nancy Drew in the series is a really good figure for girls to read about.

Another series with a lot of books I never got around to reading all of was The Magic Tree House series. Me and my one friend would always love reading these books and we would have competitions to see who could finish the most books the fastest, which led to both of us just skimming over the books. Now, one of the reason I didn't get the chance to read all of these books was because some of them just didn't seem interesting to me. I'm not a person who likes history and reading a book about them traveling back to the Titanic just didn't seem interesting. The other thing with this series was that unlike The Saddle Club and Nancy Drew, reading these books in order had somewhat of an effect on your understanding of the books. One thing in particular I remember was that the two of them got eight special powers (or something along those lines) that they could used in their missions, and I remember reading that part, having read the books out of order, and having no idea what that meant because it really wasn't explained well in the book. Never the less, this is a great series because it's really creative and it's great for those who love history.

~K.M.D

Extra! Extra! Censorship

In honor of banned books week, I thought that I would write a post on censorship, and some of the most commonly banned books today, and the “reasons” why they came under fire.

Censorship is basically when a certain books gets criticized by commonly a group of parents or a foreign government system, who think that a particular book sends a bad message to the target audience, which is usually somewhere between first grade to high school students. Most books are censored for drug use, sexual content, swearing, homosexuality, and most commonly religious views, in particular “satanic influences”. Now, these things seem pretty reasonable to ban books over, but these things often are taken way out of hand. For example, these books below are only some of the books that were under fire for being “inappropriate”.

Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne

So apparently this book was banned in schools all across the United States, as recently as 2006 because talking animals are apparently considered an “insult to God”. I am not really sure why, and I don’t know who came up with this idea, but I’m pretty sure that the author didn’t write this book in order to offend God. Several institutions in the UK and Turkey also claim that Piglet is an insult to Muslims and several other institutions claim that the book revolves around Nazism. Where people get these ideas, I do not know.

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.

Yes, this is the children’s rhyming book with colorful pictures that everyone has read at least once in their life. This book if anything should be praised for showing children not to be picky eaters and to try something new once in a while, but no, that’s not how some people see it. Up until 1991 this book apparently has undertones of “homosexual seduction”. Yes, I am being dead serious. This book was banned in parts of California for just that reason.  

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

In 1928, this book was banned in all libraries of Chicago for having an “ungodly influence” and for “depicting women in strong leadership roles”. Number one, I know that this was back in 1928, but how sexist can the government really get? I mean come on, banning a book for showing women in strong leadership roles? Women being independent is almost as bad as talking animals (note sarcasm). Also, in 1957, the Detroit Public Library banned this book because it has “no value for children of today”. Ok sure, like Captain Underpants and Diary of a Wimpy Kid have such value for kids today.

Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

This was banned in several schools up to 2010 for many reasons including “sexual content and homosexual tendencies”, being “too depressing”, and “pornographic tendencies”. All I have to say is what, what, and what?? Where in this book is there explicit sexual content anywhere? Ok, so I get the too depressing part, but like it or not, this is a part of our history. It may be depressing or sad, but children should learn about it so things like the Holocaust don’t happen again. This goes hand in hand with schools not wanting to teach students about the Holocaust or slavery anymore because they think that we can just erase that part of the world’s history by simply not talking about it. Like or not, it’s already happened, and we can’t change the past no matter how much we want to, so instead of attempting to erase the past, we might as well embrace it and learn from our mistakes.

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

So if you know the basics about Harry Potter, if would be pretty safe to assume that this book would be criticized for its witchcraft and satanic tendencies, and you would be correct. Many, many, many, Christian organizations had this book banned for those very reasons. Yes this, book centers around witches and wizards, and yes they teach subjects like divination at Hogwarts, but this book isn’t telling children to go out and worship the devil, and the divination class at Hogwarts is portrayed as being a joke more than anything. This book came under more fire from Christians than Phillip Pullman’s book The Golden Compass which is literally criticizing the church directly the entire book. People can’t even make the excuse that the criticisms it made were indirect, naming the evil government the Magisterium was a pretty big hint and these same people went out of their way to ban Green Eggs and Ham for “homosexual seduction”.

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

This is one of the more recent books that came under fire, it being a more current book, aimed for the young adult age group. Having read this book, I understand where people are coming from, banning the book for sex, drugs, alcohol, and bringing up the topic of suicide. But mostly, this book was banned for being unsuited for its age group. For one, the age group this is directed towards is high school students, who have already gone through sex-ed and the drugs and alcohol talk. All the topics in this book, aren’t things that a high schooler hasn’t experienced in either other books or movies, or even real life. Saying that a book containing drugs, sex, and suicide is unsuited for high school students is like saying that they think high school is filled with rainbows and sunshine and chastity and sobriety, which even though that would be great, is very far from the truth.

And last by not least…

The Merriam Webster Dictionary

This was banned in 2010 for contain the definition of oral sex. Ok really? It’s a dictionary for goodness sake! The definition in the dictionary is far better than the one a kid is going to learn from his friends or even Google for that matter.

So what do you think? Should books be banned in schools? If so, which ones should and who had the authority to say what is appropriate for children and what isn’t?

~K.M.D.

Sources taken from:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/spenceralthouse/classic-childrens-books-that-have-been-banned-in-america

http://degreedirectory.org/articles/25_Banned_Books_That_You_Should_Read_Today.html

http://www.examiner.com/list/banned-books-week-virtual-read-out-begins-today/3-thirteen-reasons-why