[fiction] Th1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY

By: Jay Asher

A debut novel yet again♥.

This mysterious, mind boggling work of art is nicknamed "pain on tapes" and I think it has a very beautiful touch to it. The ending did seem disappointing.. maybe a little confusing. But probably because I was kind of skimming through (reading with my friend and hell my friend is a fast reader maybe cause I like to visualize haha). The very thought that so much can happen and that you can put on tapes and what life is when you're suicidal. How many bad things that can happen to someone all on a well planned pack of tapes that take you to a whole new level of understanding and just get you hooked on the book. The concept is something new to me and that's probably what got me going.

The plot follows a girl named Hannah and the points to her death. Apparently she made tapes and passed them along to the special 13 people. People who had done something terrible to her in her life. Clay was one of them. But he was confused and terrified -- what had he done? He rolled the tapes. And decided to find out.

A slightly grim concept but a beautiful plot in the end. "TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY" is a great debut novel and I admire it very much. I don't know if any novels like this were made -- but it did seem to drift off after a while. To me, it really didn't matter. And I think the whole tape thing, suspense and the grimness of it kept me reading onwards. It was really interesting.

Yet, the ending however? Wasn't up to my taste. I didn't understand it at all. Nevertheless, the book as a whole was interesting and made some sense by itself. I liked it.

Mark: 8/10

[fiction] A Corner of the Universe

By: Anna M. Martin

"It's all about changing what's handed to you, about poking around a little, lifting the corners, seeing what's underneath, poking that. Sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't, but atleast you're exploring. And life is always more interesting that way."

This is a heart-warming book with a cute sweetness in every sentence about accepting differences, living with happiness of different forms and living without it. It's placed in the past; where a girl named Hattie Owen is introduced to a whole new concept of a person.

Hattie Owen is a normal little girl who is used to her life - and enjoys how familiar it is. It's all routined until she's introduced to an uncle no one's ever told her about. Adam is mentally ill and very childlike for a twenty-one year old. But somehow Hattie can see the love in him so clearly. She really adores him. But when no one else does -- how will Adam feel?

The story is heartbreaking and heartwarming. It's a good one. Very effective very beautifully written. The most wonderful part is how the begginning goes to the end -- the words people speak. Most of all, what Hattie realises in the end seems very inspiring. I like it very much. Ever thing affects us -- the way it ends. The way happiness just goes like that. I like how it's portrayed. I like how Ann M. Martin put in some I love Lucy bits and even explained why Adam must've liked Lucy so much. Every aspect of the stry was practically perfect. I also love how it just shows Hattie making this whole new group of friends. And that talk with Catherine before the news came up-- it just told you what was going to happen next, it got you thinking. I have to say, it was an amazing read -- ingenius.

Mark: 10/10