The Lost Hero- Rick Riordan

I just started my new novel, The Lost Hero, by Rick Riordan. Well, it's not exactly new. I read this book when it first came out in 2010, and haven't read it since. With the release of the Heroes of Olympus series finale, The Blood of Olympus, I thought I would refresh my familiarity with the Greco-Roman fantasia.

The author of this series, Rick Riordan, is by far one of my favorites. I started reading his books when I was 7 years old, starting with the original Percy Jackson series. Riordan's books opened up a whole new world of fantasy and mythology to me, and I was instantly intrigued. The one complaint I have against Riordan is his writing style: it's bland at best. Riordan wrote this series to appeal to the teenager/young adult demographic, yet the writing doesn't do the extensive plot its justice. However, the very plot of the Riordian universe compensates for the lower level writing. The plot contains several layers, and is the perfect cross between adventure, mystery, fantasy and romance.

In addition to Greek and Roman mythology, Riordan has published another popular series, a trilogy based on Egyptian mythology named The Kane Chronicles. Riordan just announced that he is kick starting another series in October 2015 that will be based on Norse mythology. As you can tell, Riordan is a mythology geek, which is awesome. It is rumored that sometime in the future, Riordan will bring all the series together in a crossover series, which is something that I can wait for.

Finally, Riordan has been fundamental in the 39 Clues series, and wrote the first book, The Maze of Bones. Riordan has published numerous adult works, but none have been nearly as successful as his young adult/teen novels.

I would definitely recommend anyone to check out Rick's books and his works
website: http://www.rickriordan.com/home.aspx

The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother: Text-to-Society Blog

My chosen second memoir is The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua. Chua narrates her experiences as an authoritative parent, and raising her third generation Chinese daughters, in the United States. Chua struggles with bringing up her own children, attempting to utilize the same techniques that her parents, Chinese immigrants, used on her as a child.  However, her daughters, especially Lulu, grow rebellious as they become young adults, wanting to make choices for themselves, and defied their mother's dictatorial parenting.

Amy Chua, author, and her two daughters, Lulu (violinist) and Sophia (pianist)

Chua narrates how she subjected her children to long hours of music practice. At the beginning of the book, the practicing hours were around two per day, but by the end the number had jumped to six hours a day. As her children grew older, they struggled with questions of their racial background, as they are half Chinese and half Caucasian. As a result, they feel as if they don't belong to either ethnic groups. Furthermore, their authoritative mother's upbringing and their experiences in the "Western" world causes what Chua refers to as "a bitter clash of cultures": the daughters' perceptions of the two widely different cultures interfered with each other, leaving them wondering where they really belong. The experiences of Amy and her children prompt me to believe that a central idea of the memoir is identity and belonging to a certain culture, similar to my last memoir, The Color of Water. This can be seen in the memoir on page 56: "'Mommy- I'm not Chinese.' 'Yes you are.' ' No, Mommy- you're the only one who thinks so. No one in China thinks I'm Chinese. No one in America thinks I'm Chinese.'"

Therefore, a realization that came to me upon in my reading is that the environment that one lives in can bring about questions of identity and belonging. According to University of Wisconsin-Madison, struggles come about as generations of immigrant families in the United States progress. For example, the first generation is generally hardworking and feels like a foreigner in the United States, but maintains their identity as a citizen of whatever country they emigrated from. The second and third generations on the other hand, typically identify more as American, as they are almost exclusively raised in the United States. Some of these people struggle with questions about their culture, such as maintaining their heritage, whereas others completely relinquish that heritage. This struggle can be seen in the memoir, as Amy fears that the "Chinese" way will be lost in her children, and tries to diminish all "Western" practices in their household. 

http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~oliver/soc220/Lectures220/General/ImmigrationSlides.pdf

These types of issues can be seen in all sorts of environments. As there are clashes between different beliefs, there is always struggles to understand where one stands in the situation. I am enjoying this book a lot, and I highly recommend it.

Color of Water-Post Reading Thematic Analysis

I recently finished the memoir Color of Water by James McBride, in which the author documents both his experiences growing up in the projects of Brooklyn during the Civil Rights Movement, as well as his mother's personal account of her childhood as a Polish immigrant Jew in South, where she too faced difficulties in segregation.

Throughout the book, I found a major theme was identity. I found this was true in several cases. To start off with, James struggles with ideas of racial identification, as he feels that he belongs to a "black world" where he also fiercely worries for the protection of his "white" mother, thus unable to cope with questions of race and the color of his skin. Keeping in mind that this is a time where the cultural boundaries between black and white Americans were very tense throughout the United States, we find that McBride often worries about where he personally fits into in the world. In the memoir, McBride states "...what I perceived to be imminent danger from blacks and whites who disliked her [Ruth McBride, mother] for being a white person in a black world." (page 8). This illustrates his worries over his mother's safety in regards to not only physical or verbal violence, but perhaps also on a identification level. McBride goes on to say "She [Ruth McBride, mother] saw none of it." (page 8), citing his mother's complete non-awareness of other's perception of her and of her son's underlying fears. 

Later in the story, we find that Ruth doesn't identify herself or her family members based on race or the color of their color of their skin, placing almost complete importance on moral values instead. We know this because in Chapter 6, Ruth states: "It [God's spirit] doesn't have a color...God is the color of water." This demonstrates that Ruth doesn't place any importance on the color of one's skin, but on how they are morally. This addresses James' questions regarding race, though he doesn't realize it at first. As James resolves his questions of identity, he turns to God in his final years of high school. James eventually was accepted into college and led a successful life. 

These questions of identity can often be applied to our lives. But, the real question is if what you visibly notice about a person can be considered their identity, like James' color of skin. In my opinion, your identity is based on your morals, similar to what Ruth conveys to James.

I enjoyed this memoir a lot and it inspired me to read additional memoirs, such as my current book, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Sayonara

The False Prince - The End

It's been nearly a month since my last blog post, so naturally I was able to finish my book The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen. Initially, I thought the book was monotonous, but later found it to be intriguing. Allow me to summarize the premises of the book:

The book is about an orphan named Sage, an average street urchin, and is unnaturally quick witted and has a tongue of silver. In the midst of a theft in a local market, Sage meets a mysterious government official known only as Conner, who collects Sage without any explanation. Upon being captured, Sage meets three other boys with similar experiences: Latamer, who is killed early on in the novel, Roden, and Tobias. The boys soon learn that they are participating in a scheme where only one of them will survive: they are being trained to impersonate the kingdom's lost prince. Flash forward, we find out that Sage is actually the real lost prince, fooling all those around him.

Flash back: Conner takes the boys to his fortress, Farthenwood, where he continues to train the boys. Meanwhile, Sage begins to earn the trust of Conner's henchman, Mott. Additionally, Sage soon finds out that it was Conner who commissioned the murder of the royal family, AKA Sage's family. Choosing day comes and initially Roden is picked as the False Prince, until Sage persuades Conner to pick him instead. Sage proceeds to inform the Prime Minister of Carthya of Conner's treason and that he is the legitimate Prince Jaron. Eventually, Conner is imprisoned and Sage becomes the king. Tobias gets Conner's old job as the regent and Roden mysteriously disappears.

I believe that any mystery or fantasy lover would enjoy this novel. It has a lot of plot twists and is definitely a page turner. I would rate this book 4.5 stars out of 5 stars, only losing points because it had a slow opening.

The book is told in first person narrative, from Sage's point of view. This type of writing enhances the story because it amplified Sage's experiences. Additionally, the first person point of view adds to the plot twist because, though the readers feels as if they know the narrator well, the truth about Sage's identity comes to more of a surprise to the audience.

Overall, I definitely recommend this book.

The False Prince- Jennifer Nielsen

I am currently reading The False Prince by Jennifer Nielsen, which is a fictional story about a scheme to replace the kingdom's heir with one of three orphans, who will impersonate the long lost prince. These orphans will have to engage in an unknown "competition" to ascend to the throne, while the other contenders will be executed.

The author of this book, Jennifer Nielsen, has written numerous bestselling works, including The False Prince sequels, The Runaway King and The Shadow Throne. Additionally, she has authored the Underworld Chronicles and has helped write the upcoming Infinity Ring series.

According to her website (http://www.jennielsen.com/about2), Nielsen has been intrigued by literature since elementary school, where she spent much of her time reading and writing ficitonal stories; her favorite books include The Hardy Boys series and The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. S.E Hinton, who wrote The Outsiders at age 17, became Nielsen's influence: Nielsen was determined to publish a book even younger than 17.

Though Nielsen didn't accomplish her goal, Nielsen states that in high school she became heavily involved in theater and speech and debate competitions. Eventually, Nielsen published her first book in her 20's, which wasn't well received. In fact, it wasn't until after her fourth book was published that she realized that her calling was in young adult and fantasy novels. After this point, Nielsen's success skyrocketed, and she is at where she is today.

Nielsen regularly tours around the United States to speak at different schools and book fairs about her renowned works.

All in all, I'd like to say kudos to Jennifer Nielsen, for becoming successful after initial struggles and for overcoming obstacles. Thanks for writing my current book, The False Prince.