Definitely Mind Blowing!

‘Eleanor & Park’ Book Review

‘Eleanor & Park’ by Rainbow Rowell is a simple Y/A story. This is basically a love story between two introverted teens. The story takes place in 1980′s. This book has every vibes and chills of that time.

Eleanor is a miserable, insecure, scared, red-headed girl who lives with her stepdad, whom she hates the most. Park is a little, self-esteemed, half Asian boy who is very much happy with his family. Eleanor is a new girl at Park’s school. I really loved the way by which the relationship between Eleanor and Park has grown. They were both a little bit different in thinking from their family and even from each other. But still a bonding of love and care grows between them. Both of them appear to care only for each other. One becomes the permanent shelter of the another.

But I didn’t actually like the writing style. I can’t just stop thinking that it could have shown something more. The pace of the story was a little bit slow. However, I really liked the ending. In total it was not that bad. Good book for Y/A lovers.

My Top 5 Favorite Books of 2021 <3 

A Vision Of Life

This is the first story of the “Avonlea Story Club” for the month (January 15th- February 15th). We tried to write the genre “Adventure” for this month. Hope you like it. My another club member is @emerald-notes​ . Please check out her story for the month too. P.s. The photo has been taken from the internet.

*****

I woke up at 9:40 PM. ‘Shit!’ I’m gonna miss my train,’ I thought. I quickly went to the bathroom, trying to fresh up, but to my unfortunate life, I could never do anything fast. I came back from the bathroom and started applying all sorts of lotions and moisturizers contained in my daily skin care list. But ugh! It always takes a lot of time. However, I tried to finish dressing up as quickly as possible because I had to catch the train at 10:15 PM. It was getting super late. I did not even look at my watch, fearing it would already be 10:15. Instead, I just quickly hopped in my car and started driving to the direction of the train station. But again, the traffic lights! “It’s gonna kill all of my time” I thought. While waiting for the traffic light to turn green, I tried not to think what would happen to me if I was to miss the train. I started to feel very nervous and stressed. But then, to my great relief, the green signal came, and I started driving right away. The speed I was following was greater than ever because there was no way I could afford to miss the train. Finally, I got to the station. But again, to my utter disappointment, it was already 10:20 PM, and the train had already started running. I stood there watching it run. I could not stop thinking only if I had come 5 minutes earlier. Why did I even stop at the signal? What if I’d woken 5 minutes earlier? But there was nothing to do. What happened just happened. I missed the train. I was in great despair. What was I going to tell my parents? They would be disappointed with me as usual. I found a bench and sat there. My phone rang. I did not look at it because I knew it was my mother calling to know whether or not I got to the train safely. I couldn’t just receive the call and tell her that I didn’t get to the train, let alone safely. I started to get annoyed when my mother kept calling me for the third time. I wasn’t to face the situation. I couldn’t even decide what I was going to do now that I’d missed my train. “But I must do something”, I kept thinking. The whole situation was very pressurized, and I didn’t want to be in it. As I couldn’t stay undecided even for some time, I decided I would just sit there until I thought I should move. I knew it wasn’t an effective decision or maybe no decision at all, but I needed it in order to feel relaxed. Yes, I needed it, I needed some free time to make myself distracted. Yes, distraction was all I needed. I deserved it, I couldn't let myself get pressured. I was extremely tired, and I was beginning to feel restless. My eyes were closing. And then everything became black. 

I woke up again with a start. ‘Where was I?’ I thought. It seemed that I was in the station and fell asleep. ‘Of course, I didn’t leave it and didn’t even talk to mom and finally decided to rest here instead. What a silly thing to do!’, I thought. Suddenly, my eyes caught the stare of another  pair of eyes. The pair of eyes belonged to a man. The man was a bit gigantic.  He was looking at me with a wicked smile on his lips. He reminded me of someone I knew but couldn’t remember at that moment. I could not help hating him. He was making me uncomfortable with his continuous staring and annoying smile. I knew that that particular behaviour of that man was intentional. I kept thinking what I would do if this cruel man suddenly attacked me. I could not remember where I had parked my car. But that was not an issue because the keys are going to lead me to my car. So I started to search for the keys. But, Alas! My bag wasn’t with me. Quickly I reached my pocket, and it was what I had expected, my wallet was gone too. ‘What was I going to do?’ I started to become very tensed. I imagined the cruel man to have taken my stuff to put me in this dangerous situation. ‘How can I be this careless?’ I blamed myself. Then a worse thing happened. The man seemed to call someone without moving his disgusting stare from me. He was surely telling his friends to come meet him in the station. I seemed to guess what was going to happen if his friends had arrived. He and his friends were gonna surely hurt my feelings. I was going to be doomed. And yes, to make it obvious, I saw his friend arriving in the direction of that cruel man with a disgusting laugh. ‘No, this is not going to happen’, I pleaded to myself. I stood up and, without thinking twice, started running in the opposite direction. I thought maybe running from the situation would save me that time. But I was wrong. I heard mocking footsteps behind me. Yes, they were also running after me. As I said, I was doomed!

I had to quicken my steps as I was running for my life. I could swear that I had not run that fast in my entire life. There was a kind of forest near the station. Finding no other convenient place, I directly ran into it. As expected, the forest was very dark. As I was running deeper, it was getting darker. At some point, I could not even distinguish the trees. So, I had to slow down as I didn’t want to get hit by a tree and cause me more trouble. I noticed that the footsteps were no longer audible. I thought maybe they became busy with something more exciting. However, I was relieved. So, I sat down under what seemed to be a huge tree. I was sweating and struggling to breathe. I began to  think about a lot of things. I didn’t think it was worth living. Never in my life I did something extraordinary. It was rather boring as hell. I didn’t even like my parents. I was sure, neither did they like me. What was the point of calling each other and knowing stuff, I could not understand. Suddenly I saw a glimpse of light at the far end of the forest. I started walking towards it because my brain was incapable of thinking about anything else. 

As I reached the source of the light, I found a house. It was a wooden house. The house appeared very dark, perhaps because it was made out of very dark colored woods. I knocked at the door. I knocked it twice. An old woman finally opened the door. Her hair was all silver and she gave me a soothing smile. As I was just going to ask her something, she moved away from the door gesturing me to step inside. I obeyed her because she seemed friendly. I thought maybe she was the one who could actually help me get out of the situation. I sat on a tool near the fireplace. The old woman sat beside me. It seemed like she was ready to hear me talk. I could not decide where to start. It was always very difficult for me to start the discussion. Instead I started looking around her house. The house had only one room in which we were sitting. There was no other furniture other than the two chairs (where we were seated) and a table. The contents on the table were really weird. There were some moving dolls and a glass tube filled with a sparkling purple liquid. The dolls were very lovely looking. They had smooth skin and rosy cheeks and were glowing and radiating charisma. I was pleased at their beauty and their movement. Then, the woman spoke. 

“You seem to like the dolls, don’t you?”

“Yes, they are very comforting and lively”, I replied.

“You can be like them, you know, if you want.”

She took the glass tube from the table.

“This is called the ‘Elixir of Beauty’. This can make you happy just like it made the dolls happy”, she said pointing the tube towards me. 

I took the tube. 

“You can drink it” she seemed to suggest. I was hesitating. Things can happen this easily, I did not believe. “Can I really be as happy and lively as the dolls? Shall I trust the woman?” I kept thinking. 

Suddenly I woke up hearing a beep. It was my alarm. I really woke up this time from this peculiar dream. Was it a nightmare or an excitement, I could not tell. But I realized that, I didn’t yet miss the train. The train which was to take me to the job interview was still waiting. I could not miss that chance like I did before. I knew I needed it. ‘No slow-motion work this time’, I told myself. But firstly I had to take some moments to finish up my skin care routine peacefully because it was important. I had plenty of time but I had to make it useful. 

And I did reach the station and hopped on my train timely and safely. As the train was running, I decided what I would be doing after I had appeared for the interview properly. I needed to call my mom. Probably she liked me or liked me not but I did not have to think about that. I also do need to call my therapist and thank her. She was a good adviser after all. As the train started to run faster, I kept thinking about the dream. It felt too relatable. Like I had lived my life in that dream. 

My Valentine, Timothee Chalamet <3

“Dune” Book Review

“Dune” by Frank Herbert is very much enjoying literally from the very beginning. I have soo much to say about this book. No wonder why people still call it a classic. I would say, it is in fact one of the best sci-fi book ever. 

The novel is super fast and highly paced. I never thought I would enjoy a book full of fights and adventures this much. This book hit totally different. In fact, it is also very dramatic. I felt like I was watching a soap opera TV series. In some parts I constantly had to remind myself that I was reading a sci-fi book! I loved the beginning of every chapter which contains a little extract from different writings about Mua’dib and Arrakis by Princess Irulan.

The inner thinking of the characters and what is going on in their minds in every little matter have been explained in the book and it is one of the best parts of it. I loved some of the Bene Gesserit ways very much. They really do have some productive plans which I think is very hard yet very powerful to stay calm and clean in difficult situations. We actually need to get adapted to some of those techniques. One of the great motives of the Bene Gesserit that I liked and Paul & Jessica kept adapting throughout the whole book was ‘I must not fear, Fear is the mind killer”. The mother-son relationship between Jessica and Paul is complicated yet very understanding. I liked the struggle they had together over the dune. Those parts were hard in one way and peaceful in another because they at least had each other. I also loved Paul & Chani together soo much.

Now, I shall talk about some of the characters. Paul is a great observant. He is very curious about everything. The sudden change that happened in Paul was so perfect at least in that disastrous situation.  Jessica is a great mother and protector. She tries to protect Paul from troubles and she is extra careful. There is a strong feminine pride in the reverend mother’s voice. One of her quotes was really good, like “ Humans are almost always lonely”. 

Frank Herbert was definitely a brilliant man with a good fold of knowledge. He was well informed and knows a lot. he created the whole universe fantastically. The descriptions, the rules and rituals of the fremen community is insanely good. one of the sayings of “Dune” is my absolute favorite which is “God created Arrakis to train the faithful”. 

One complain that I have about the book is, there was definitely a need of more female developed and powerful characters other than Jessica. And certainly I didn’t like some of the fremen ways of treating women. So, in a sense, “Dune” is back dated at least while mentioning the feminine situations. 

Overall, the book is crazy. The time when I was reading it, I just kept thinking about it all day and night. It is very catchy and keeps giving you glimpses of scenes even when you aren’t reading it. I loved it and can’t wait for the movie. Absolutely worth the hype.  

“The Haunting of Hill House” Book Review

It starts the quote “whatever walked there, walked alone”. This quote somehow seems to explain the whole story, right? The book wasn’t something I had expected. It deals with mental horror more than it deals with the ghostly horror which was not something I had expected though I knew there would be something psychological to it.

 It starts with Eleanor going to the Hill House by getting an invitation from Dr. Montague. The descriptions added about the town downstream the Hill house were like something we expect from a typical haunted house story. However, I too enjoyed the journey of Eleanor going to the Hill House, the writing was very effective in that part. The atmosphere inside the Hill house which has been described made me feel suffocated. The Hill house was described to consist of different rooms with different colours of the rainbow but still very dark and deep, just to think about this it feels like nature is against lighting the house. All through the book, Hill house did not only spread horror, it also had spread hatred, loathing, jealousy and suspicion. But at some points, I felt that though Hill house was disastrous, Hill house was also their comfort zone to an extent. One very disagreeable thing about the book is that it’s very draggy. You’ll have already gone through almost 2/3 of the book but you’d feel nothing major is happening actually. I would have liked it better if it did contain a bit more things going on. 

 Now, talking about “The Haunting of Hill House” means talking about the characters of the book. The protagonist is of course Eleanor and everything is about her. Her life seems really boring which needed excitement and hence the decision of going to the Hill house has arisen and she was genuinely happy to go there. She is very imaginative and keeps imagining a lot of stuff at the time of the journey. She is actually very insecure and an overthinker. She always keeps thinking about what her mother says or how she would have reacted in all of the situations. I felt like she had been controlled by her mother for the whole time. She troubles herself in every small matter. She is very pathetic and desperate which is very normal for her as she was brought up very strictly. And then comes Theodora. She is a chill kinda person who also seems to like excitement. One of the lines from the book is very appropriate as it has described the characteristics of both Eleanor and Theodora, “Theodora’s face was stiff and sulky, she likes attention, Eleanor without thinking, moved and sat on the floor beside Theodora.” Dr. Montague was the most adventurous among them. The only thing I want to say about Luke is that he is a flirt.

 Jackson’s writing style is very simple and easy to understand. She added many small details to make the hill house appear scarier and darker. But I did not like the style of her writing in case of conversations. It was messy with a disturbing flow which lacked smoothness.

This was all about the book. I enjoyed it though my expectation was a bit higher.

“And Then There Were None” Book Review

“And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie is one of the best mystery books ever. The plot of the book really touched my heart. The story is short but well decorated. There is no way you can get who is the actual killer. Christie made the whole thing soo much confusing.

The story deals with 10 main characters. actually there WERE 10 characters and they happened to be murdered by someone who was among them. But none could understand particularly who was that murderer. And the murderer killed them in a very peculiar way following a rhyme named ‘Ten Little Soldier Boys’. 

You won’t actually understand how twisting and interesting is this whole story without reading it. The book has created an environment of great suspense and thriller for me. I would definitely recommend it to everyone who likes murder, crime and thriller stories.

Adult & Young Celebrities Look Alike

I’ve found some of the child actors\actresses look exactly like some adult actors\actresses. They should be in the movie together where the child actors\actresses will play the younger version of the adult actors\actresses.

1. Natalie Portman & Millie Bobby Brown

2. Ansel Elgort & Gabriel Bateman

3. Kiernan Shipka & Mckenna Grace

4. Hailee Steinfeld & Isabella Sermon

Review of ‘The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas ’

This is a wonderful young adult book. The content of this book is soo much deep. But it is written in a simpler way. Words are simple and calm. There has been a movie of this book in the same title. The movie is good too. I think there can not be any other best adaptations of this book except for the movie which was released on 2008. Both the movie and the book have their own way to express the detailed issues of that time.

The story is simple but not an easy one. The lead character is small boy named Bruno. He is an extrovert and likes exploring. Bruno always wants to be near with his friends and family. He has a deep love for his place (partially indicating for his country). Bruno is kind and friendly. In the beginning of the story Bruno has to move on with his family to a new house which he does not like. It was for his father’s job who was an important member of the Nazis. However Bruno finds himself very lonely there and keeps missing his previous house and friends. Gradually Bruno gets to meet with Shmuel who lives in the concentration camp. Bruno keeps wondering why all the people in the cam wear the same pyjama all the time. However there creates a heavy sacred bond between Bruno and Shmuel. Shmuel becomes the only friend of Bruno. Eventually Bruno keeps getting confused of the dirty works which is done by the German soldiers to the camp members. He starts having dilemma.

The ending of the book is very heart breaking. In the book the ending is kept a little concealed (though what happens is pretty obvious). But in the movie the ending is made clear.

I think everyone loving historical fiction and drama should read this heart touching novel. That is what at least I think. If You think something different plz let me know.

‘Battle of Troy’ Based on Troy (2004) movie

Troy is an ancient city situated on the northeast coast of Turkey. The Trojan war is a famous war, held between Troy and Sparta in Greek mythology. Homer was an author who had written one of the greatest epic poem in history named ‘Iliad’. The Trojan war was fully described in the ‘Iliad’. A brief history of Trojan war according to Troy movie (2004) is described below:

Troy was a peaceful country. Priam was the king of Troy who was very benevolent. Priam had two notable sons and they were- Hector and Paris. Hector was the greatest warrior in the Trojan army. He was a great leader, son and father. Paris was very attractive and lovable. But he wasn’t as much responsible as his elder brother Hector. On the other hand, Sparta was another ancient city in Greece. Sparta was an imoportant site in Mycenae. Mycenaean period was the most powerful period then. Menelaus was the Spartan king. Menelaus’s elder brother Agamemnon was the king of Mycenae. Agamemnon was a powerful warrior but not a good person. Menelaus was mostly a follower of his elder brother but was not as victorious as his brother. Menelaus was married to Helen, who was a beautiful lady. Helen never loved Menelaus and neither did he. Achilles was the bravest and best warrior of Sparta. Achilles was strong and careless.

Once Spartan king Menelaus invited Trojan princes Hector and Paris and were making a peaceful treaty between sparta and Troy. There, Paris fell in love with Helen and so did she. But Helen told Paris that she couldn’t be with him as she was married to Menelaus. paris made a plan to be with Helen. The next day Hector and Paris left for Troy and paris according to his plan smuggled Helen to Troy. In the middle of the journey, Paris showed Helen to Hector and explained about their affair. Hector felt embarraced of Paris. But consequently Paris convinced Hector and finally took Helen to Troy.

Meanwhile, Agamemnon and Menelaus discovered the runaway of Helen with Paris. Menelaus became furious and told Agamemnon that he wanted a revenge. Agamemnon liked that and planned to attack Troy and control the most important coastal city of Asia. Then Agamemnon commanded all the kings of Greece to gather their armies against Troy. And as Troy was a very powerful city, Agamemnon wanted to hire Achilles, the best warrior. As achilles wanted to be remembered in the history, he joined the war between Troy and Sp[arta with his young cousin Patroclus.

Hector and Paris arrived at Troy with Helen. Priam, king of Troy accepted Helen wisely as his daughter in law and named her ‘Helen of Troy. The next day Spartan army arrived at the beach of Troy and began to destroy the apollo temples of Troy. There, Briseis, cousin of Hector and Paris was praying.Achilles took Briseis and returned to the Spartan camp. agamemnon wanted to have Briseis but Achilles protested and there created a feud between them. So Achilles denied to go to the battle next day.

The next day Paris challenged Menelaus. There held a duel between them. Paris used the sword of Troy in the battle. But as Paris was very weak and he had never been to any battle, Menelaus easily took away Paris’s shield. Menelaus injured Paris in the thigh and he fell to his knees and scrawled to his brother and could not stand back again. Hector caught hold of Paris and disagreed with Menelaus and Agamemnon tom let Paris return to the battle again. Menelaus became violent saying that the rules of war had been violeted and attemted to kill Paris. Then Hector killed Menelaus immediately. Agamemnon became shocked at his brother’s sudden death and ordered the Greek armies to attack Trojans then and then. Then a great fight betweeen trojan and Greek started. In the fight Hector killed one of the powerful warrior of Grreek, Ajax. After that Greek army soon returned to their ships. Trojan King Priam started to gather his councilors to plan about attacking the Greeks. The Trojan armies were very good at archeries. So, Priam ordered his archers to attack the Greeks in the next day at day break. The Trojan archers threw flame arrows to the Greek camps. And then Hector and his armies surronded the Greek camp and attacked the Greeks. Then Patroclus was in the armor of Achilles to inspire the Greek armies as Achilles denied to fight. Hector thought Patroclus to be Achilles and killed him. When he removed the helmet, he realized that the one he killed wasn’t Achilles but his cousin Patroclus. Achilles heard about the death of his cousin and became raged in anger.

The next day Achilles challenged Hector for a dual. Hector got prepared for the battle. Hector was sure of his demise and so he in the previous night showed his wife Andromache a secret tunnel out of Troy. He also told her to rescue as much Trojans as she could when there would be a full battle in the city of Troy. 

There held a great dual between Achilles and Hector. Both of them were so courageous and strong. But eventually Achilles killed Hector and took his body with him to the Greek camp. At this Praim got hurt. So, in the middle of the night, Priam went to the Greek camp in disguise and rerquested Achilles to return his son’s death body to him as his son deserved an honour of proper burial. achilles was pleased with the courage of Priam and returned his son’s body and Briseis to Priam and told him that Hector was the best warrior Achilles ever fighted. And then Achilles announced a 12 days off of the battle for Hector’s funeral. Agamemnon became angry at that. At that time Odysseus, king of Ithaca, planned to build a great Trojan horse and told Agamemnon that they could attack troy by hiding in that horse.

The Trojan thought the Trojan horse to be a blessing from the sea God Poseidon ans accepted that. At the dead of the night, The Greeks came out of the horse and began to destroy Troy. At that time, Hector’s wife Andromache led Paris and otherTrojans through the secret tunnel. Paris left Helen telling that he would come with Briseis and went to find Briseis. On the other hand, Achilles kept searching the Troy for Briseis as he fell in love with her. Priam watched the Greeks destroying all the Trojan religiousa datatues and claimed that Greeks had no respect for the God. Then,Agamemnon killed Praimand caught hold of Briseis and tried to enslave her. But at that time, Briseis killed Agamemnon with a blade she was hiding in her back. Then Achilles came running and found Brisies there. Paris found them both, shooted Achilles with arrows several times in the heels and killed him. Briseis burst into tears but Paris took her with him and left for the tunnel out of Troy. At last Odysseus found Achilles’s body and arranged a funeral for him.

The battle of troy was a great battle but none of the side won the battle as both of the king got  killed. The beautiful city Of Troy got destroyed because of jealousy, stubbornness and love.