We've Moved!

This is the last post to be going up on this site! We've just launched a new site over at http://thebookaddictsrefuge.webs.com

It looks better, is easier to use and there's more ways for you to get involved with the site with the addition of forums and other goodies

Seeya on the other side!

Annabel

Review of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Rating: 5/5 Stars - An emotional must read - you won't regret it. 

The Fault in Our Stars is a brilliant work of fiction. It follows the story of two star crossed lovers; Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace. When I first read the blurb on goodreads I decided not to go and read the book. I could see it was rated really well, but I didn't care.

I didn't want to read a book about cancer, and sadness and mortality. I didn't want to read something that could be real. That could bear any semblance to a person's actual lived heart ache - And I am by no means suggesting that this book is based in fact, so John Green you can just chill. Normally I prefer to read something entirely unrealistic, about a zombie apocalypse or vampires with a romantic streak or a dystopian world where average teens somehow become pumped up super people and kick ass. However, I listened to Green read the first chapter aloud on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_vFvb... ) and I was hooked. I could picture Augustus and his crooked smile and I wanted to know more, about him, Hazel and Isaac. From the first chapter I became obsessed with the characters. 

And that's the fantastic thing about Green's writing. Each character is important, they are each essential to the storyline. To me at least, it didn't feel like anyone had just been added in to fill a role. I loved the humour between Augustus and Hazel. I stand by what I've said in my status updates - my favourite section of the entire book is the first page of chapter 15 (which I'm including here because I am no longer restricted by minuscule character limits!! I'm also nesting it in a clearly marked spoiler so that those of you who want to experience it in the moment can, and those who want to know what the heck I'm talking about can actually read it)


***SPOILER QUOTE!***


Gus: “It tastes like . . .”
Me: “Food.”
Gus: “Yes, precisely. It tastes like food, excellently prepared. But it does not taste, how do I put this delicately . . . ?”
Me: “It does not taste like God Himself cooked heaven into a series of five dishes which were then served to you accompanied by several luminous balls of fermented, bubbly plasma while actual and literal flower petals floated down all around your canal-side dinner table.”
Gus: “Nicely phrased.”
Gus’s father: “Our children are weird.”
My dad: “Nicely phrased.


This is a book that will make you laugh. It will give you warm fuzzies, and you will sit there and be all *naww they're just so cute and adorable and oh-my-god-kiss-alreadybecauseyou'reperfectforeachother!* Just as often however, you'll curse the universe, God or whatever higher 'Something' that said it's ok for people to suffer, and made it so that the world wasn't a giant "wish-granting factory" where everyone lived happy lives like the weird ass pixie at the start of the movie 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' (I've never gotten round to reading the books so I can't say with any conviction that the pixie exists in its novel form - My Bad!). You will learn from this book. You will quite probably fall in love with the people contained within its pages. If you react anything like I did, you will admire their strength, humour and intelligence. And you will mourn their loss when there are no more pages to read. 

John Green tackles issues of mortality, identity, love and stigma and he does it in a way that will make you laugh and cry all at the same time - and regardless of whether or not you're in the mood for a book about cancer, sadness and all of the above you should read it. Because it is brilliant and you won't regret it for a second. 

Review of XVI By Julia Karr

***Please be aware - this review contains SPOILERS!***

Rating: 3/5 stars

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XVI  is a good book. No, it's not fantastic and Yes there are a LOT of rough edges. But Karr has done a really good job of getting to the heart of an issue that is coming up more and more in today's society - The increasing sexualisation of youth in our society and the impact of the media and marketing agencies on our everyday lives.  


We live in a world where there is a lot of pressure placed on women to dress a certain way, to achieve the perfect body. Celebrities are shamed in magazines for daring to go out in a bikini if they have cellulite, and teenagers and children are constantly bombarded with sexualised images - one only has to look at shows like Toddlers & Tiaras to see that this has become very controversial issue, and kids are having sex at younger and younger ages. 


In addition, in Australia at least to some extent, we are dependent on the media for information about the world around us and what's acceptable and what's not. Government looks to the media as a guide to what issues are important to people. That's part of the way international movements like Kony 2012 were able to garner such a huge response so quickly. They used the media to draw attention and force governments to take notice of the issue they were promoting - not that this worked particularly well in Australia when push came to shove. Another example of expert media manipulation is the Liberal Parties 'STOP THE BOATS' line. Such a policy is simply fear mongering -  seaborne asylum seekers represent such a low percentage of refugees and immigration in general that it should not be an issue for Australia today. But support from the media and the constant campaigning of the Liberal and National Parties made it a major issue. 


But can we actually trust the media to present us with fact and not sensationalised sop? To refrain from engaging in unethical practices? Looking at events like the Murdoch phone hacking scandal...perhaps not. 


Karr successfully shows us what a world where the media was corrupt and the government had that level of control over our lives would actually look like. The media in XVI is a powerful force of social control, subjugating women and teaching kids about the way they're expected to behave. People growing up in this society are raised with a barrage of propaganda. Little wonder Sandy acts the way she does, or Ed can hurt Ginnie without consequences. 


Other reviewers have noted (nastily) that that alot of this book is really really critical of women - that you're either super conservative like Nina and denying yourself even basic school yard crushes or you're a whore. just because you want to look nice - that means that you're a slut. 


HOWEVER I disagree - I think maybe the author was trying to show how living in such an extremist society would affect those raised within it. Nina is fighting so much with her sexual identity and what's expected of her, that between society in general, the nasty men she's met in her life and her family she has no room to accept herself as she is and the desires that come naturally. Not having sex doesn't have to mean that you don't have a boyfriend, or that you don't dress a little provocatively (or a lot if you want to) but in Nina's world there IS NO imbetween. Rape is almost expected - men have all the power really and in such a society dressing a little provocatively - the MEN in that situation can use that and be like... she wanted it. I was provoked. I couldn't control myself. they've been socialised to believe that those kind of responses are ok. So whilst we know that Sally isn't a slut - the way she dresses unjustly allows others to justify their own sick actions in the eyes of the law. It's wrong - but it's a symbol of the degradation of the society that Nina is living in. 


At the end of the book Nina finds herself in a different environment to what she'd been in before. She was safe, the men in her life actually cared about her. She had a boyfriend who wasn't going to hurt her just coz she was 16 and he could, and the people that had terrorised her were no longer a threat. Her sexuality (and her life in general) was back in a domain where she had the control. She was empowered to be able to just be a teenager and have a boyfriend if she wanted to, to muck around and think dirty without someone threatening to take that away. I think at the end of the day the real message that could be taken from the death of Sandy is that when people don't have any options available to them, to make their lives better, to be the people they want to be then innocent people get hurt. At the end of the day Sandy didn't have many options to get out of a tough situation. She was reliant on Ed and others like him and that imbalance in power cost her her life

Review of Taken by Tony Talbot

*** Rating: 3/5 Stars***

I liked Taken but it wasn't the most fantastic book I've read. Overall I just didn't really find myself getting pulled into the story, at least not until right up at the end. And its the fact that in the final couple of chapters I couldn't really pull myself away that has meant that I'm rating this 3 stars and not 2. 


Talbot does some things really well and his portrayal of our isolated male teen protagonist, Amon, is probably pretty spot on! The kid has grown up on an island, living an extremely isolated life. And its very clear from the very start that something is seriously wrong with his father, because even though all he does at first is drive fast, Amon is so careful around him its like he's waiting for something to explode. Talbot really sets up the characters very well in that regard, if he wants you to think they're dangerous or revolting - you'll know it. He did it so well infact that even when things change and Amon questions his original views of certain charachters, I couldn't quite shake the sense that there was something sick and weird about them and they could not be trusted. 


There were OTHER things though that just threw me entirely. For example - straight off the bat I decided that Amon's dad must be an idiot. An angry idiot and a bully, but an idiot nonetheless. His father was checking how long they'd taken on their trip and getting all 'speedy gonzalez' with a death wish in a SMARTCAR 


A smartcar is this tiny little environmentally friendly compact thing - its only got a 1L engine on for goodness sakes. The idea that this car could push 140 without turning to mush is quite hilarious. If he's a man worried about speed then that is NOT the car for him. Seriously it comes down to a choice between saving the world, one environmentally friendly car at a time, or buying a gas guzzling hulk of a machine that can drive like the wind. Speed or Green? That is the choice. Of course maybe Talbot was talking about some invented car like Kit in Knight Rider - which I dismissed because of references to how tall the father was and how tiny the car is, and the fact that it didn't really do anything special lol, but if that's the case - my bad. 


But overall, it was a good book. If you don't mind a bit of a wait for things to really get interesting and some moments of weird stalker like behaviour and ickness from his mum then you should definitely give it a read.

The Annihilation of Foreverland by Tony Bertauski

This review does contain **SPOILERS** so if you're only looking for description of the book take a look at http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13368166-the-annihilation-of-foreverland :) Thanks!

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***Rating: 5/5 Stars***


This book was absolutely amazing! What I really loved about it was the concepts that were being explored (at least they were from my POV – which is quite possibly completely wrong haha). I was hooked from the first page and literally could not put it down till I’d finished the book. The story is set in what is essentially an island prison for lost boys. Each boy has an elderly Investor who is supposed to be some kind of caretaker – but with an extra side of creepy. When the kids wake up on the island they’ve been robbed of their memories and told that they’re there to have their minds healed and every single last one of them has a hole in the middle of their foreheads. And somehow – they’re all ok with it.

They spend the majority of their time mucking about, going to their version of school (without the pressure), working out and generally just being kids. Except that unlike pretty much any kid I’ve ever met – they’re all obedient to their Investors (who have the ability to electrocute at will – so I guess their obedience is understandable!), who ritualistically force them to participate in the ‘Haystack’.

Inside the Haystack the boys are humiliated and basically made to be as uncomfortable as possible without doing anything that would cause them permanent injury – all in an effort to make it so that the kids will do anything to escape the pain they’re in, and accept the needle that’ll take them to the virtual world they’ve dubbed Foreverland.

And it’s this virtual reality that makes the book so compelling to me. Most people at some point in their lives will wish for a way out of whatever rut they’re in, just an escape from the day to day muck of life. And that is exactly what is being achieved through Foreverland.The boys go there and the world and its reality (if you can call it that) is almost a polar opposite of their lives on the island. They have complete control over themselves, their bodies and the world around them. They control what they feel – don’t want to feel the bully attempting to completely bash your head in? don’t have to! Feel like flipping that car? Go for it. On the island they have no control at all – this knowledge is cemented by their experiences in the haystack just minutes earlier. This all sounds pretty great doesn’t it? I mean aside from the fact that they’ve all had to be tortured and impale their foreheads with a needle to get there. But the side effect of going to a place like that is that your true reality becomes less and less appealing. They lose themselves to the illusion. Their bodies are still fully functioning, but the person is gone. – I really don’t wanna give too much away so suffice to say that by creating this virtual reality Tony is able to explore ideas like the fear of death, people’s need to escape, the idea of the ‘soul’ or (or at the very least the essence of a person that makes up their consciousness) and the corruption and greed that is present in society that makes a place like the island an all too real possibility.

The Annihilation of Foreverland is a fantastic book, something that can easily be read by adults and teens alike. It explores some pretty awesome concepts and keeps up the suspense so that even up until the final pages you’re not quite sure how things are going to play out. Read up and enjoy!!

Review: Amy Plum - Die For Me

***Rating: 1/5 Stars***

Ok first of all, let me just say that I thought that the basic concept of "Die For Me" was kinda awesome. It was original and put a different spin on the whole 'zombie' scene. That said - It was absolutely brutal trying to get through it and ignore the empty, stereotypical, plastic dialogue. 

My biggest problem with this book? The characters. All of them. There was not a single character that actually had any real depth to them. They were all under developed caricatures. The worst offenders included our heroine, Kate, and her love interest Vincent. There's a fair amount of fuss made about how since her parents died Kate has become a mature, cautious young woman. That is a complete load of garbage. Kate comes across as being ridiculously whiny and naïve. Vincent is in much the same boat (as are his 'kindred'). I don't care how often they reanimate as teenagers - they have lived for decades and you'd hope that some of that age and experience would manifest in their present day behaviour, rather than being plagued by temper tantrums befitting of teeny boppers and rich kids. 


To top it all off, Kate is just so blasé about the whole undead situation. Her entire stance seems to be "Oh - you're actually a zombie, whose touch can force me to be calm even though I should be running around screaming like a lunatic, and you become a corpse every month like clockwork? Nah that's cool. I'll just come over and have some popcorn over your dead body while I wait for you to come back to life" - In what universe is that considered normal? 


She takes it to the extra creepy level when she kisses his corpse. Because that's what it is. Like it or lump it, for three days every month Vince is dead. His spirit may be 'volant' but his body is dead. There is no comparison in this to vampires. None. Vampires may be 'Undead'. But they're conscious. What Kate is doing, is making out with a unfeeling, empty, corpse. Dead things aren't attractive. Maybe someone should tell Kate. 


As if all of that weren't bad enough, but they you have to deal with cliché after cliché, terrible dialogue, tacky - TACKY mistakes like making a supposedly agoraphobic protagonist go to a café, and your typical paranormal romance insta love. Did I mention that the dialogue was terrible?? There are way too many cringe worthy moments to even list. 


I would not recommend this book. I know that many people have rated it really highly and it seems to be one of those books that you either love or hate. Twilight was better than this book. It held so much promise but at the end of the day was just a massive let down. I'm going to give Book 2 (Until I die) a shot, just on the off chance that Amy took all the criticism to heart and improved the sequel, but I'm not holding out much hope. 

Thoughts on the Divergence Series By Veronica Roth

I'm a little confused with this plot line. Amanda Ritter was talking about Divergent individuals being more flexible. She said that when they are "abundant among you" THEN it would be time to seek out the rest of the world and help them. however - we KNOW that divergent individuals have been pretty much ritualistically weeded out of the population from the time of the originals. Tris' mum specifically states that her mother (who it stands to reason was a dauntless member) told her to leave dauntless and go to abnegation because she was divergent and it was not safe for her to stay.

If divergent people took so little time to appear within the society then it sounds less like a case of 'we need people with flexible minds out here in the real world' and more like they wanted to see how long it would take people to rebel against a society of strict controls, even when those controls were considered normal and entrenched in each individuals subjective perception of their world. It's as if they're trying to ascertain what conditions would have to be present to provide a catalyst for change.

Divergent people are more prevalent within the oppressed group of the 'Factionless'. This does make sense as having tendencies towards multiple factions means that to a certain extent, in order to be able to function within one of the factions they have to repress some other part of their personality or rebel against the faction - both paths are hard to sustain and ultimately are likely to lead to either their demise or ejection from their factions. What is interesting about this situation however is that they don't rebel until their society has hit a crisis point. YES - Evelyn was planning a rebellion. But what kind of a rebellion takes an entire decade to plan with no attacks, or protests or any kind of action taken until that final moment? It wasn't until someone was threatening to change the way their society was structured that people were able to fight. By attempting an evil take over, Jeannine showed each individual within their society that they have power to affect the world around them and that unless they're willing to fight for it, anyone can come in and take it away from them.

Finally, looking to the actual structure of the society, Amanda Ritter stated that "We have formed your society in a particular way in the hope that you will rediscover the moral sense most of us have lost". This involved them splitting the society into Five Factions - Amity, Dauntless, Erudite, Abnegation and Candor. Each faction represents some essential element to humanity, but not as she insinuates to do with human nature, but morality. Human nature and morality are two completely different things. The sense of morals that our society bestows on us is not necessarily what would have been our 'natural instinct'.   Morality is a form of social control, which is why its ok to cannabalise people in some parts of the world and not others.

Amity	Peace and bliss
Dauntless	Fearless and Protectors.
Erudite	Intelligence and Progress
Abnegation	Selfless and Controlled
Candor	Honest and Accepting

By splitting the factions in this way they have divided people into different aspects of morality, seeking peaceful solutions, protecting people, progress for the sake of progress and the betterment of society, being charitable and putting others needs before your own and the biggie, being honest and learning to accept honesty from others. Each of these are valid, admirable morality traits. However by dividing them, each faction is FORCED to become a twisted version of what it would be otherwise. Without selflessness, Dauntless becomes a ruthless machine that thinks nothing of eliminating 'weaker beings' rather than having bravery, to protect the society that dwell within the walls of their compound. By valuing peace, neutrality and bliss above all else, Amity rejects anyone that would upset the balance and interrupt their happiness and hence have no qualms about drugging their faction members. They become carictures - nothing but brainless hippies because they are literally high, all the time - even if that's not really a choice on their part.

Each faction becomes fiercly loyal to their own people, to the point of the almost ritual rejection of parents from other factions. And it is because of this loyalty that the non divergent members of Dauntless are able to rise up, because they can see their own faction being controlled against their will. And it is for this reason that  Candor is unable to fully participate in the rebellion. They are loyal ONLY  to their own faction, and because they do not have the same level of vested interest, or bravery, that Dauntless does, the only way they know how to approach the situation is through one that relies on the old balances of power, not the new social order that Erudite is attempting to strong arm on the people.

So. My question is this. What really is the point of the social experiment that characters of the Divergence trilogy find them in? Is it just a social experiment gone wrong or is it something more sinister on the part of those who reside outside the world we've seen so far?