Harken by Kaleb Nation

Weak beginning, strong ending. That is how I would describe Harken in a nut shell. Of course as usual if you don't want me to spoil this book for you, there may be spoilers.

Harken is about teenager, Michael Asher. Michael is known as the 'Eye Guy' because of his unique ability to read people's emotions, giving him an insight into people's thoughts. In this world, all of Earth is controlled by lizard like creatures, known as Guardians, who take on forms of humans. They control everything: from the news, to the police, even to the weather. They Earth on lockdown without the humans knowing. Michael finds himself caught up in this world and discovers that he is actually one of them. He is a Guardian.

The plot was what really intrigued me. I am a sucker for conspiracy theories and Kaleb Nation is a master at self promotion, so he intrigued me from the start. I've followed Kaleb's progress on the book on his youtube page for nearly the whole time he was writing it and none of us 'Nationeers' (as us fans of Kaleb Nation are called) knew what the name of it was... it was called #thesecretkalebbook (yes complete with the hashtag). The history around the book was a complete mystery to us. Kaleb self promoted his book through word of mouth via social network sites. We were all excited about the book. Which is why I really, really wanted to like the book.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

“If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending, there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle. This is because not very many happy things happened in the lives of the three Baudelaire youngsters.”

I have heard of this series from the 2004 movie adaption, I watched the movie and instantly fell in love with the concept. I have always been a fan of fantasy novels and this particular story perked my interest. I unfortunately (no pun intended, honestly) did not get to read the books until this year and I will have to say I was completely blown away. Unfortunate Events is under the category of children’s lit, but it is probably one of the most intelligent children’s lit I have ever read. Daniel Handler (known as Lemony Snicket for Unfortunate Events) has such a witty way of writing and an especially unique writing styles.

I enjoyed Snicket's way of explaining certain words. At first I thought that this was just his writing style, until I reached the end of the series and thought back to his explaining those certain words. There are some theories that there are clues hidden in those little explanations which has led myself to go back and read the entire series again and look for those clues. Unfortunate Events keeps your interest and just when you think things cannot get any worse for the Baudelaires, it gets worse. I was a bit disappointed in Snicket's display of the series main antagonist Count Olaf. But before I continue I must tell everyone, if you start reading your have to read all thirteen books. Some complain that Count Olaf was just every other villain  But the thirteenth book completely changed my mind. Snicket hints in the books (especially in the later ones) that there is a reason behind his villainy and why he hates the Baudelaire family so much.
There really are no answers for really anything in the book. Everything is hinted at, but that is kind of Snicket's point in the books. We always search for answers, but sometimes those answers lead to more questions. It is tricky to end a series without really explaining anything, but Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler) does it so elegantly and he does leave answers it's just you have to dig for them. He ended the series in a tasteful way or I guess not so tasteful, I guess the best way to describe it is that Snicket left you full and yet still hungry for more. 

The thirteen book series may be intimidating to look at, but each book is only roughly around one hundred pages long, the longest I believe is only two hundred to three hundred. They are very fast reads and enjoyable if you like reading just for the sake of reading, but I cannot promise you that you will not stop thinking about it once you finish The End.

The Fault in Our Stars

So it's been a little while since my last blog post, but I've been on my senior trip! So good times and I had plenty of time to get some reading done. Among the three books I finished (personal yay!) I finished The Fault in Our Stars. And I will admit, sitting in the hotel lobby I cried unashamed. But I do have a few problems with it. Okay so now here's the SPOILER ALERT! Like seriously, if you have NOT read the book do not read this next section.... seriously. It'll ruin everything for you...

The ending seemed a little hopeless. It made life out to be kind of simple and hopeless, well not entirely hopeless and simple but more like: you're born, you live, maybe you'll live life without anything seriously damaging your body (in Hazel's and Gus's case they both have to live with cancer), you love and hopefully that love will be an infinite love, and you die. It seemed like that to me. You're born, you live, you love, you die. I know that this book is a lot deeper then that, but that's just how it came across.

Augustus's outlook on love was, like quoting Tennyson, "It's better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." Of course in my mind that quote has always made me want to barf. But after reading Fault it begins to make sense. In the beginning Hazel, who has lived a tad longer than she meant to, believes that because she could die at any moment what is the point in love when she's just going to die? Augustus showed her differently and after his death Hazel would not have taken back the time they had together. So that is one of the positive outlooks of this book.

The one theme through the book is after death. And one of the questions is if we would still love someone even after their death. Will Hazel's mother still be Hazel's mother after Hazel dies? Will Hazel still love Augustus after he dies? And of course, anyone who has read the book knows that the answer is yes. The point in the book (at least what I got from it) is that even though you only have that small amount of time, it's an infinite amount of time.

So even though Augustus's death seemed a little hopeless for me, that nothing really happens when we die. The subject of love is a beautiful picture in this novel.

30 in 1

So part of my New Years resolutions is that I would read more. That means actually read the books I decide to read, not start a book, set it down and forget about it for a few months.


Last year, in 2012, I re-discovered my love for books, but I never really sat down and read a book. Of Mice and Men. While Steinbeck is a great writer it just wasn't something I was in the mood of reading. Sometimes I want to read something that's just simply fun.

My outlook on books have changed over the years. A younger me picked up any book that had a good summary. Younger me didn't care what genre a book was in or really who the author was, but older me began to look at books in a very closed minded kind of way. I began to look only at the author and not the story (while there is nothing wrong with reading a book because of the author), I forced myself to like a book because of who the author was and I was beginning to enjoy books less and less. The fun in reading began to fade.
Then one night as I lay in bed forcing myself to get through The Grapes of Wrath I thought to myself why I had to read this serious book, I was in no mood the read this. And that's when I decided to actually read books I wanted to read. I wanted to get that feeling when you read a book and you can't put it down, that feeling when your favorite characters are put through so much and you pray they make it out. And so now here I am, don't ask me what this lengthy rant about books came from because even I don't really know where it came from.

Anyway, moving on to the original meaning for this post. I made a challenge for myself to read thirty books this year. I just thought of the first number that came into my head and entered it and so I came to thirty books in twelve months. I am thankful that I have quite a few books in mind and books that I can't wait to read. On the right side bar you will see the 2013 Reading Challenge which is hosted by Goodreads. And on the left side bar you will see the books I am currently reading which are at the moment: The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (I've heard a lot about this book so it better be good), and The Miserable Mill (Book #4 in The Series of Unfortunate Events) by Lemony Snicket. I am currently trying to get through all of the books in the Unfortunate Events series and after that I will be moving on to the Harry Potter series. So wish me luck on my reading journey and pray that I will be able to get through The Grapes of Wrath.

P.S. Part of the reason why I am having such a difficult time with 'The Grapes of Wrath' is because I have it as an actual print book while the others I have on Kindle. So everytime I open the thick book I see how many I have left, it is quite daunting to see I still have 511 more pages to go.

Books I Want to Read

Christmas is coming and I've heard about some great books that I really want to read! So these are some of the books I hope to get for Christmas!

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Looking for Alaska by John Green

Stolen: A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Harken by Kaleb Nation (coming this January)

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer