Recently read this and I really liked it. Of course I did, I have a minor obsession with Sylvia Plath and would like to emulate her appearance. Saying I liked this book doesn’t really mean anything, because I am yet to find something by her that I do not.

Anyway, I liked her you could relate every story to her life, she had made her own life into a work of fiction and taken events that others would pass off as normal and made them something you’d want to read, she also writes with such intensity. This is a book of short stories which tell of different events in her past, many from her childhood. There is something very ordinary

In the edition I had it also had many of her Cambridge notes which were sad but also enthralling. Some people have criticised her for being selfish and narcissistic but that isn’t her at all, I get the sense reading this part that really she just wants a father and is possibly overwhelmed by life. She just sinks into sadness and doesn’t know how to get our of it again. I do feel sorry for her and believe that she was a woman with her own set of problems rather than being a bad person. about, which I love. For example, her insecurities,  her fears and her childhood. I think for me I sometimes make her into something she isn’t, like I make her more than a human. I guess, this book makes me want to write about really boring things in the hope that I’ll actually make them interesting.

I would recommend Sylvia Plath to anyone, there is something quite haunting in the way she writes and there is a real sense of realism but also perhaps idealism of how things ought to be but aren’t.

The frustrating of liking someone and the uncertainty of knowing whether they like you back or not. To be honest we all just want to cut the phase of feeling like you like them but they don’t like you and skip straight to something meaningful! I read some advice today which I thought was really useful and shall now impart to you, my dear reader.

1. Eye contact – it is proven that the longer you hold contact the more in love you are and so therefore trying to engage him in eye contact tricks his brain into thinking that you are who he is in love with.
2. Maintaining hobbies while in a relationship is attractive and important.
3. If you are always happy around him this will mean he will associate you with goodness and so therefore think you are a positive energy in which to have in his life.
4. Don’t play hard to get, some boys just get conscious and think you’re uninterested and won’t necessarily ask again. Fair enough, don’t do the asking. I wouldn’t, if a boy does it shows they really like you. But if they make an effort with you, make an effort back! Although boys do like competition to make them feel like you are easy for them to get but no other boy.

I hope any of this helps! Also could probably be adapted to girls, girls like someone who makes an effort and some like spontaneity!

First love
Abundance abounds
Eyes tainted with the notion that you are perfect
But lo, a year on and it strikes
They, alike to myself, have traits
Were you shocked to find that I too have faults
The expectation is an illusion
Arm yourself, dear reader
When you find him he is not perfect
Indoctrinate yourself with truth

Know his faults
For then you can truly love him

I was recently broken up with. By recent I mean a text on Christmas Eve disclosing that they’d just gone off me and felt that I was a burden. None of this of course being either of our fault, and definitely not mine. Of course. And although he has no belief in external powers or fate he still couldn’t take any of the blame and said that he just couldn’t control his emotions and I obviously had never not felt in control. I have but with emotions you may not be able to control (although to some extent I think you can) you can still interpret him. But no.

I am upset about this, I really am. He was my first boyfriend and I’d been going out with him for a year. Admittedly I could see it coming, he just wasn’t affectionate any more, but the expectancy made the break-up no less hard. I think the thing is that I miss the friendship. When it all started I needed a good friend, not a boyfriend and now I have neither. I was over reliant on his company and friendship, which now means  feel very much alone. I am getting better though. It is strange going through a break-up, half of you is telling you to “replace, replace, replace!” but then the other half is saying you will never trust another man and never want a boyfriend ever again. Both are wrong.

I think what makes it so hard is the selfish human desires and how we look at the implications that it has for us. Maybe it’s not selfish but it feels like a disappointment. I have my own theories for this. I feel that we are indoctrinated with the expectation and the illusion that the more someone finds out about you the more they will find to love about you but that’s not true. The more someone finds out about the more they find to hate, the more they see your traits and who you really are. Then that’s when they decide whether they can put up with yours traits.

While being in a relationship you often look at the other person as being almost perfect, or at least perfect for you. And so it is a real disappointment when you find that they are human and to be human is to be fallible. I think the expectation that you are supposedly perfect just comes back in the end proven wrong. That is why when I next enter into a relationship I want them to know my faults so they get no surprises. I think the break-up in itself portrays many of my faults and I do blame myself for it because I know I could have been different and then maybe be would have stayed, but it probably was always going to break. I have been looking at it as being able to see how I can be a better version of me for someone else rather than for him. I would definitely say to people going through a break-up that one thing that helped me was thinking that it was my only chance, there will be other boys, and they will be better. Just to reiterate the illusion, that may not be the case but it certainly helps.

There is also that fakery that he presented that we can still be friends. May I ask how? And why is that any different to being in a relationship other than there’s no physical contact and you don’t have to care, and you don’t. And it asks me how my day has been, something he never cared about when we were going out. And although at one time I don’t want him to ignore me because of course there is a sense of still liking him but then him speaking to me is just reminding me of what I have lost. I just always liked him more than he liked me and now it is not nice that it has been proven.

Please reader, although you know this, please don’t dump anybody by text ever. Especially not on Christmas Eve.

I hope your mother knows
What it is her little boy has done
To escape and leave nothing
But an emblem of human cruelty
To carry alone
She must.

It was the night before Christmas
When he dropped her,
Said he’d ‘gone off’ her and her burden,
“Replace, Replace, Replace,” she cried
But her heart could not trust again.

Beautifully written about two people who find they have fallen in love in impossible circumstances and who appear to begin with to be in constant conflict but also are the complete opposite. Two that probably should never have met and if they had done under normal circumstances would probably not have fallen in love. Without ruining too much about this book, the ending did make me cry. It also made me want to go out and do things and start living more, there is a great passive that Will says when he basically tells her to liver her life because she does not know what is going to happen in the future and people should be constantly be striving to better themselves.

2. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 

Also very beautifully written but also completely different to other books I have read before. Personally I like how it takes a different approach to things. For example there is a part about the burqa and most people find this restrictive and oppressive and at first she does but as she becomes accustomed to it she finds there is something beautiful about it. And in many ways there is, it can also be seen as a way to hide what you really are or as though she has no secrets from others but feels this can be her own personal secret and way to hide her reality from others.

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Civil Rights movement in America is something that greatly interests me and this can be seen to tie in with this but by displaying blacks before the law and how a white man’s word far outweighed a black man’s. There is also something very clever about the characters, especially the children who seem to understand more than most of the adults. I especially liked Scout, she says the line, “I was born good but have grown progressively worse”, which personally I love because I think it sums up the whole human race and is something that many adults would not face up to. This novel is great because anyone reading it can see that the man is very obviously innocent and everyone on the jury can see this too but there is need to get him convicted and an expectation to carry on with preconceived ideas and the stereotype.  This is a very wise novel and one I would recommend to everyone.

4. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steven Chbosky 

This is my favourite. I feel as though I can relate to Charlie in a way I have not felt with many other books, the idea that he is trying to change the events in his life but also how others aren’t entirely letting him. I love Charlie, there is a childish innocence about him which is lovely and he is the kind of person you can’t dislike. There is definitely more than meets the eye with Charlie. The reader automatically falls in love with him and are sad as due to his good nature he is taken advantage of by many. It’s the kind of book I could keep coming back to again and again.

5. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 

This is interesting from a physiological perspective and has the theme of whether people were just born evil. You know that question, was Hitler just born that way or was it did factors contribute? The book is so clever because you cannot dismiss Kevin as being crazy as behind what he does is some logic and he is a very intelligent individual. He knows what he is doing which makes what he does somehow more scary. Written from the side of his mother you begin feeling sorry for her but by the end you’re just not that sure!

6. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 

Plath is probably my favourite author, her life and work fascinates me. Her style of writing is raw and sometimes quite profane. It is pessimistic and to some degree exaggerated but I love it. The Bell Jar is semi-autobiographical and speaks of her suicide attempts, it isn’t uplifting but most of the best novels aren’t. She feels as though she is in a bell jar looking at the world and not really feeling as though she belongs anywhere. She feels completely alone and as though she has no one, it’s almost a bid for control. There are parts of this which are horrific and quite gruesome that are quite hard to read, what makes it more shocking is a lot of it is true. I would recommend this to anyone and say don’t be deterred from it’s feminist branding.

7. Liver by Will Self 

Very interesting and quite unlike anything else I have read. It is made up of short stories which are all linked by the theme of liver, each story has dark undertones but are also exceptionally well written and creative. My favourite being the story based on Prometheus and the twist on Greek mythology. Self’s writing style is quite sarcastic but also unique.

8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Very interesting narration. This novel is set in World War II in Germany in a Himnel Street (Heaven Street), you can probably already guess the irony behind this name. The story is narrated by death who follows the story of the little girl who refers to herself as the book thief. The ending was upsetting and the reader gained a strong interest in the characters and felt upset when anything happened to them. Which inevitably it will on Himnel Street.

9. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini 

Probably like this more than A Thousand Splendid Suns. But only just. I loved the main character they seemed to be the embodiment of everything good in human beings and the reader was let down when anything bad happened to them as it was virtually impossible to find anything bad in him. Obviously I won’t ruin it and say what the worst thing was but the way it is written makes it seem yet more horrendous.

10. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

This was my favourite as a child and I also loved the film. Narnia is still a place I would like to go to! I think I enjoyed the religious connotations but also the whole idea itself, it was just one fantasy book that really meant anything to me. I loved the four of them and this book has probably been one of the fastest I have read. Since then just reading some of Lewis’ quotes has made me love it more as he was wise but also quite funny. This classic is one that I would say is timeless.

Dystopian novel set in the future, 1984. The thing that makes this book so disturbing is how much of it has actually happened. The screens that are watching you as you watch them and Big Brother. It’s the kind of novel that I hope does not become reality with it’s harsh censorship and the complete control the government has over the people. The concept of Room 101 came from this book and it does have a way of playing on your mind after reading. Great book, very disturbing.

2. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

I think what makes this book so disturbing is the autobiographical nature of it, written about Sylvia and her experience of depression and attempted suicide attempts. A few days after this novel was published she killed herself which may hint at the state of mind she was when she wrote this novel. Beautifully written however does not attempt to hide the truth. Everything in this novel seems to be tainted with something shocking, even down to sex where she becomes hospitalised. Again, what makes it so disturbing is how it is not far from the truth, it is about looking through the world like a baby in a bell jar and how you can feel isolated and separate from the world. And many people do feel this way at different periods of their life, the feeling of having no control over anything.

3. We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver 

Written about a boy who commits a high school massacre. Specially disturbing due to his age but also due to how Kevin makes sense, he is right. You can’t just say that there was something wrong mentally with him or that he has extreme views, or he had a particularly bad upbringing. Kevin is a very intelligent boy who just wants to do something which he feels  he hasn’t done before. It is almost as though he wants to make a name for himself. But the way he carries it out it shows he has thought about this and carefully selected his victims, it is clever but also incredibly sinister. It shows how people can be brutally harsh and his treatment of everyone in the novel proves this. His inability to love or feel grateful of anything. Shriver said that she writes about the things that scare her and honestly this is something that would be all parents worst nightmare. It poses the question, are people born evil?

4. The Collector by John Fowles 

The collector lives alone and collects butterflies, he captures their beauty by sticking pins through them and keeping them in his house forever. The collector has a mental illness of some sort and when he sees a beautiful woman near to where he lives he wants to capture her too. Things take a disturbing twist though as although his intentions are just to keep her forever so that she may love him and he loves her, it just can’t last long. The ending also surprised me but also scared me because you don’t expect it, although you probably should. The book leaves you wanting to find goodness in him and hoping that he will let her go but knowing that he won’t.

5. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Another dystopian, and also very frightening. It shows another extreme and militant regime taking hold. The scariness is in the fact that it flashes back to how things use to be to show you how things have changed and the complete take over of the government. The setting being America makes it much easier to imagine. This novel seems to regress human civilisation to get back to the bear essentials and basic s of life.  It also shows how the identity of the Handmaids have been taken away as to be unique defies the system.

6. The Stuff of Nightmares by Malorie Blackman 

I read this years ago and remember it keeping me up, the most disturbing things I find are usually not so far from the truth and if you read this you will see what I mean. A train crashes and then you are able to go into the nightmares of all aboard, all nightmares are things that could potentially happen which is what makes them so frightening. One man is in the army and fights with another man, one is seriously injured. The man phones his father to ask if the man who was injured can stay with them as he was wounded trying to save his life but his father says that he cannot because he would be a burden and hard work and they would not be able to manage as their house would need to be completely changed. The son kills himself as it is later discovered that he is the wounded soldier who just doesn’t want to be a burden. This is made up of many short stories of nightmares, so I have not just ruined the entire book for you!

7. Liver by Will Self 

Also made up of short stories which all have a disturbing take on Liver. From the barman the just drinks too much to a spin on Greek mythology. Issues such as euthanasia and excessive drug use are also raised. This was disturbing just due to the suffering of every character, not just physically but physiologically  As I have never read a book similar to this it made it yet more disturbing.  The way Self has written this also adds to the feel with it almost having sarcastic undertones and the idea that “it is good to be having a good time” so that no matter the cost of your body you had a good time doing it. Which alas is not the case for many characters as Val who received a surprise Liver transplant will tell you!

8. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 

This may surprise but in it’s own right there are certain parts of this novel which are disturbing to the reader. It shows very extreme Islamic views in regards to women (extreme, please don’t get offended, do not mean the average Muslim) and the idea that they can treat them however they want to, and they do. There is one part I remember when reading it when the woman does not cook well and so he forces her to eat rocks and tells her that this is what eating her food is like. The way it describes the event is yet more disturbing as her teeth are broken and her gums are bleeding and you can almost feel the pain the girl must be going through, take account that it is a girl, showing that the arranged marriage did not need an age restriction. This shows a friendship in an unlikely place and doe resonate with the reader.

9. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold 

The first chapter especially of this book is disturbing as it is a novel written about a young girl who is raped and murdered by her estranged neighbour. Very disturbing reading what human beings are capable of, especially human beings who you assume are normal but end up having a twisted background and the characters realising they have happily been living next door is a murderer for so many years. The film does not fully show the disturbing nature as it tries to prove itself to a wide ranging audience but this book, especially the first chapter, is in places very hard to read.

]]> http://sunsetsandfireworks.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/most-disturbing-books-i-have-read/feed/ 0 Most Disturbing Books 9 glowinthedarkowl Most Disturbing Books Most Disturbing Books 2 Most Disturbing Books 3 Most Disturbing Books 3 Most Disturbing Books 4 Most Disturbing Books 5 Most Disturbing Books 6 Most Disturbing Books 7 Most Disturbing Books 8 http://sunsetsandfireworks.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/the-perks-of-being-a-wallflower/ http://sunsetsandfireworks.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/the-perks-of-being-a-wallflower/#comments Sun, 09 Dec 2012 15:54:41 +0000 Hayley http://sunsetsandfireworks.wordpress.com/?p=1093 ]]>  

Probably my favourite film, and favourite book. Well I do like to vary. I think they have made a great adaptation of the book. Which I suspected they would as the author produced it. Although I saw this a while ago, I have a short break from blogging and so have decided to fill you in!

I honestly don’t think they could have picked a better person to play Charlie, Logan Lerman. Charlie is shy but also innocent and there is something about him which never lost the shelter of childhood. Well, obviously if you read the book or watch the film it does, but the way it is written he is presented to be quite childlike. One of the parts I remember in the book was when he discovered the joys of masturbation which was funny as the way it was written it was as though his mind had been blown. I love the way he is in the film it makes you feel so sorry for him but also makes you want to be his friend, you can just imagine the actor is also a really nice guy. In the film the lines that he says are funny because it is so clear that is just doesn’t really know how to speak to people. Also there is sadness for him because it seems that because of his goodness and wholehearted sense of trust he is taken advantage of. This can be seen with by everyone that he just lets people treat him how they want to, just to make them feel good, this can also be seen with Mary Elizabeth who he doesn’t really want to go out with but does to keep her happy. Honestly the ending could have made me cry. I think I like him because I feel like I want to know him because I almost feel like I can relate to him. He seems to hear something and it become his favourite song so much so that he listens to it everyday and never gets bored with it, I do this. Also everytime he finishes a book it becomes his favourite book, and I feel I do this too. There is something about feeling alone I can relate to and the desire to turn things around. I’ll be honest, I fell in love with Charlie in the book and in the film.

Emma Watson was also great in this. I was wary that she might forever be branded as Hermione Granger and it would be hard to imagine her playing any other role. It was not like this. I don’t know if it was entirely to do with the haircut but you believed that she was Sam. Also the audience saw a different side to her. I wouldn’t say Sam was particularly rebellious but she was definitely not the nerd which Hermione was so it was interesting to see her to things quite naughty in comparison to Harry Potter. I also loved the character possibly even more than I had done in the book because she just felt so sorry for Charlie and really wanted to look out for him and was concerned by how others treated him. I don’t think the audience got the full benefit of Sam’s background though and her own individual problems.

When I saw the trailer, I’ll admit Ezra Miller is not who I expected to play Patrick but I think he did a good job, he was such a hilarious character and got a much better view of just how humorous he is. Thinking about it afterwards it changed my mind from not sure to definitely couldn’t have thought about anyone better! I also thought the relationship with Sam was lovely and liked the way he shared the same quality of looking out for people. He also was proud of being below average which shows that he was unique in his own way. This novel definitely concentrates on individuals problems as a key theme and you could see him struggling as well with wanting to help Brad but not being able to. Also the way he kind of in his own way takes advantage of Charlie just because Charlie lets him. This is the kind of character you feel sorry for because you know there is more there than meets the eye but he covers it up with the humour. I don’t think the audience or reader ever really know the extent of his problems which suggests that he has been through much more than expected.

And here is a clip just to encourage you to watch the film or to reminice!  

Recently finished this book and have to say I loved it, well that may not be the word for it. I was intrigued by it, it was depressing but fascinating. This book is clever because although no mother deserves a child like Kevin it poses the question, was it her fault? It also asks whether it is such a thing as people just being born evil or do events make them that way?

Kevin wasn’t wanted by his mother, not really, and children can probably sense this and so in that respect maybe it was her fault. Although Kevin didn’t make it easy to be wanted. The reason for this was probably due to just how clever he was. He could see from a very young age all the pointlessness of things. His crime also strikes me as a cry for attention and to do something that means something and has a detrimental effect on others. Kevin viewed his mother as a hypocrite the way she would escape America and say bad things about it but was American and did all the things she said she hated about Americans. I suppose that is alike to everyone, they can complain about their country while they are in it but the moment they are abroad if someone says something bad about their country then they get offended. I think there is humour associated with saying what is wrong with where you live. I loved the character which Shriver had created, the way he always wore clothes that were too small for him but also the way he challenged himself to do things that others may not want him to do. Kevin had the ability to understand adult problems, that many adults wouldn’t understand, from a very young age. It is as though he was almost born knowing. That is knowing how the world worked and perhaps his mother’s doubt of actually wanting children. From the moment he entered the world he can be seen to be different, so maybe some are born evil.

As far as the film goes, I have not watched it. That is, yet. I would say that from what I know they could not have picked a better person to play Kevin, Ezra Miller. He just looks like someone quite unconventional and someone who could be scary in their knowledge. The mother, played by Tilda Swinton, also looks panic-stricken and as thought the grief of having Kevin is too much. She looks like a mother who is at the end of her tether.

While on YouTube I watched the trailer and saw in the suggested bar that there was a documentary about the child of rage, Beth Thomas. I clicked on it and it really was quite fascinating, I would recommend it, the psychology behind it is interesting. Beth’s mother died when she was just one and she was left with her father who sexually abused her, she was finally taken away from him with her younger brother and adopted by a minister and his wife. However, the early years of a child’s life, perhaps even months, teaches them how to love and have a conscious but because she had been hurt so badly by her father she lacked this quality. In the documentary she talks fervently about wanting to kill her brother and her parents, she sticks pins in them and has to be locked in her room at night as she has spoken about stabbing them, she wants them to feel it but not see it. There were also times when the mother has to physically stop her from hurting her brother and also when she has found a nest with dead baby birds lying beneath it with their necks broken. What I found interesting about it is the way that Beth spoke, she was only six but spoke in a way which was articulate and as though she was much older than she really was.  Anyway she goes away to rehabilitation and gets better, which is a relief and now has turned her life around. What is remarkable is how they can change someone around so drastically, if you have a spare 45 minutes, I would recommend a watch.

Back to Kevin, I loved this book as the ending was a surprise but also a upsetting. It is a novel which is resonant with its horror. The planning and intelligence of Kevin is impressive but also dark. I plan to watch the film too soon!