The Shooting Star Blog

I was bored over Christmas break, and my dad thought that was the perfect opportunity to force me to read. I complained about reading enough, though, that I could convince him to let me read some children's books, which would still count as reading in his eyes. And so he forced me to read the Chronicles of Narnia series, about a different world with talking animals. I already made a blog post on the second, most popular book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis, and now that I finished the series, I'll do a review of the last book, The Last Battle,  and tell you if you should consider reading this old children's book series. First, I'll start with a summary of The Last Battle, while avoiding any big spoilers. It starts with an ape and a donkey finding a lion's skin. The ape then told the donkey to impersonate the lion Aslan, the 'god' of the animals. It then switches perspectives to the king of narnia, Tirian. Tirian learns about Aslan returni...

Hi everyone,  I've been reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 for the past couple of weeks now, and today, I'll be giving my review of this book and how it eerily connects to our modern world. Fahrenheit 451  is set in the future, where the government has outlawed books and sends "firemen" to go and burn all books. As a result, society as a whole has been dumbed down through different forms of entertainment (more on that later), and learning is not considered important. Guy Montag, the story's protagonist, is a fireman who burns books, and like most of society, despises books and truly enjoys burning them. His opinions change when he meets his new neighbor, Clarisse, whose free-spirited nature makes Guy question his life and whether he really is happy. As the novel progresses, he starts reading and becomes a rebel towards society. I think that Fahrenheit 451 is quite interesting and thought-provoking because it connects so well to things that are happening in ...

       What a book I just read. The Scarlet Gospels by Clive Barker was definitely a novel by Clive Barker. It’s a sequel to The Hellbound Heart and being written by him it was pretty messy, and there was a lot of shock factor. Unlike The Hellbound Heart, this book was not an easy read, I have quite a few problems with it. I only managed to get through about two-thirds of the book. I will not write a summary because I think it would be just as hard to understand as the book was.  One problem I had with this book was the shock factor in it. I found that it wasn't necessary to move the plot forward. We know that Pinhead is evil and a demon, so why are there so many scenes where it shows in detail what he can do? We do not need to have these scenes, I feel like they are only there to get a reaction from the reader.  Another problem I had was with Pinhead, he has a Superman complex. He is far too powerful compared to everyone else in the story so he always come...

     The Courage to Be Disliked  is a great novel written by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. It follows the conversations between a philosopher and a youth over five nights, as there philosopher, using Adlerian psychology, helps his young student understand that life is simple and happiness can be achieved by anyone. During each night, they talk about different, yet quite related, topics. I will admit that I have only read about the first three nights, but because there isn't really a plotline, every one of their discussions is extremely insightful and information-heavy. I think that it works for this novel.     During the first night, the philosopher teaches his student about denial of trauma. He says that past experiences only determine the self through the meaning we give them, and we are controlled neither by emotion nor the past. The philosopher then talks about how people want to change, but are afraid to and lack the courage you need to change and ...

  I've never really liked science fiction. I felt like it was either too much violence, cheesy plotlines, bad editing or unlikable characters. My dad is an avid sci-fi watcher, contrary to myself, so I would try to watch some shows or movies with him. However I really only enjoyed the time spent with my dad, not what we were watching. As I got older, we really only watched cartoons together. But this winter break, I was really bored and wanting to do something and so I asked if we could rewatch “firefly,” a sci fi show I remember vaguely from when I was 8 or 9.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s sort of a bridge between western dramas and space travel sci-fi. It had a distinct folk aesthetic, which sets it apart from other series. It follows the crew of the ship “serenity,” with characters ranging from stubborn captains and bubbly engineers to shepherds and government fugitives. Each episode plays into a larger storyline, but contains different sub-plot lines that can be either fun...

I was bored of reading really old books that my dad forced me to read, so instead he let me read a still old childrens book. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a book about 4 children going into a wardrobe and arriving in the land of Narnia, where there's talking animals. The animals are facing a crisis of the evil witch declaring winter in Narnia for over 100 years, but the children are prepared to stop her. The four children, Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter, were just on a normal vacation when the lion, Aslan, required their assistance in killing the witch. There is a little bit of a betrayal and a 'sad moment', but it was what I would expect of a children's book. Firstly, the book itself was a normal length of a children's book (about 160 pages) which made me want to read it even more, since I usually don't finish longer books. Secondly, I like how Aslan is very powerful but is a lion, which shows appreciation to cats, which I like (literally the whole re...