Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh

I first heard about Hyperbole and a Half through WordPress, and after hearing even more about it, I am still to hear a single bad thing about it. I am now slightly addicted to Allie Brosh’s blog. It is incredibly funny – even bits that I don’t understand why they are funny, but they are.
Hyperbole and a Half is a blog by a woman in her twenties or so called Allie Brosh. In her novel, she shares several stories about her childhood, her two dogs, and her depression, complete with illustrations which I must say really help tell the stories.
Allie’s wonderfully told stories made me laugh, entertained me, and made me think about depression in a way I never have before. It was interesting to hear an explanation of depression from someone who has actually gone through it – and it made it so much easier to understand.
Of all the stories included in the book, I think one of my definite favourites was The Party. I laughed myself silly at the illustration of Allie standing in a fast food restaurant saying, “Parp?”
I would definitely recommend Hyperbole and a Half to anyone wanting a quick, funny read that is capable of making you think. I think I still prefer the blog, but I loved the book as well.

Maedhros (the character)

When reading the Silmarillion, I couldn’t decide whether or not I liked Maedhros.The eldest son of Feanor, he is among those who are cursed, but is also one of the elves who took the terrible oath never to rest until they had the silmarils. But, no matter who his father and brothers were and how much that impacted on his life, it was unclear to me whether he was a good person or a bad person or a good person flawed by circumstances.
He comes across as a good person, or at least better than his father and brothers, because he would take no part in burning the boats to stop the rest of the elves of the Noldor settling in Beleriand, and is very upset that his father should do so. However, he does nothing to actually prevent his father from doing the things he does. He just lets it happen, and does the same in several other situations as well. But then again, I ask myself if it is really his responsibility to stop his family from hurting others, and I ask myself what I would do in his place. The answer to both questions is simple – I don’t know. But I can’t help feeling that perhaps if Maedhros has stood up for his morals more often, a lot of hurt might have been prevented.
Maedhros is spoken of as a valiant warrior against Morgoth, but it begs the question of what he is fighting for. Is it for the safety and freedom of Beleriand, or is it for the silmarils? Or perhaps it’s both.
He does undoubtedly appear to be a better person by far than his brothers, and to have more allies, due to being a more reasonable person. His brothers are spoken of plotting against and even killing their own kind, not to mention generally stirring up trouble wherever they go.
At the very end, Maedhros is shown in a negative light, making the wrong decision while his last remaining brother disagrees, and yet goes along with him. This last bad decision finally causes Maedhros to see the error of his ways, but it is too late. And in my opinion, his end had not so much to do with the oath and curse of the Noldor, but his own character, and the choices he made.
To be honest, I still can’t decide whether I liked Maedhros or not, but I don’t really think he is a bad person, but a person at a disadvantage due to circumstances, and not strong enough in character to persist in doing the right thing when everyone around him is committing awful crimes.

The Silmarillion by J R R Tolkien

I bought this book quite a while before I actually got around to reading it. But when I was reading it, I carried it Around with me so I could take it out and show it to everybody I knew, because I can honestly say I’ve never owned a more beautiful book. It was a very lucky find in a market I was browsing in during the summer, and I’m glad I did eventually read it.
The Silmarillion is a history of Middle Earth in its first ages, before The Lord of the Rings is set. Despite being a general history, it mainly revolves around the Silmarils, which are three jewels containing the light that went into the sun and moon. The sons of the elf who made them all took an oath to find them, and in attempting to fulfil this oath, they do many regrettable actions.
I have to say, this book definitely cleared up some small things that had been confusing me about Lord of the Rings. For example, I learned who Sauron actually is, and how Arwen had the choice of giving up her immortality. I wouldn’t recommend reading this book first, because it’s not the easiest of reads, and you would have to be a Tolkien fangirl like me to be really into it. However, it goes along with LOTR very nicely. I finally learned the full story of Beren and Luthien, which is mentioned several times throughout the trilogy.
I’ve written a previous post about The Children of Hurin and since an abbreviated version of that story features in The Silmarillion, I enjoyed reacquainting myself with it. In fact, that story, and the story of Beren and Luthien seemed like fairy tales to me, which is something I found very appealing, since I like fairy tales, but haven’t read any in a while.
Although I really enjoyed reading this book, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to first-time Tolkien readers. However, if you’re a fan of the LOTR trilogy, I definitely recommend it. If you, like me, enjoy a trip to Middle Earth, this is for you.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

I chose to write a post about this book, not because I’ve read it recently, but because I’ve read it so many times throughout my life. I must have read this book at least 25 times, including the many times I had it read to me before I could read. It was my bedtime story of choice. It isn’t even really a children’s book, but it is understandable to children, in some ways even more so than to adults. But, above all else, to me it is simply beautiful. It’s my security-blanket book.
The Little Prince is about several things, but at its simplest, it is a story about a little boy who travels through space looking for a friend. He loves a flower, whom he has left behind on his own planet. The narrator meets this little prince in the Saharan Desert, where he is stranded, so the story is also about him (or her – it isn’t clear) getting home.
Reading it as a child, I always thought that the book was great because it not only told an entertaining story, but painted a picture of the world that a child can relate to. The Little Prince explains the ridiculousness of grown-ups, the way that something can become unique to someone who loves it, despite seeming at first just one of many thousands all alike, and how exactly hidden beauty is the most powerful of all. Those things are, I think universal truths to children more than they are to adults, and when reading this book, I allow myself to be a child again just long enough to appreciate the unimportance of figures, and the importance of whether a sheep will eat a flower or not.
Reading it more recently, I began to wonder if the flower is in actual fact a flower, or if it is a metaphor. Perhaps the Little Prince loves a woman, who he calls a flower because he sees her as being as beautiful as one. However, I prefer the story when it is a flower. It made much more sense to my child’s mind, and so it is the more likely that that is how the Little Prince would act.
This book is beautiful because it explains the world as a child sees it, and moreover it explains beauty as we all should see it – that the source of true beauty lies within, like a well in a desert. I recommend this book to anyone who likes books that make them think, anyone who wants to feel like a child again, and anyone who can easily distinguish a boa constrictor digesting an elephant from a hat (to be fair, I couldn’t).

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

This book was lent to me by a friend of mine who owns almost all of Agatha Christie’s books and has passed this particular one around nearly everyone we know. I asked her if I could read it after I went to see The Mousetrap (which I loved) and I have to say that And Then There Were None was quite similar to The Mousetrap, in that it is a murder mystery about a group of strangers trapped in a house together, knowing one of them is a murderer intent on reenacting a morbid nursery rhyme, but not knowing who that person is.
And Then Were None is about ten strangers trapped in a huge house on an island together, while one among them is killing off the others one by one. No one knows who is next to be killed, but they know that everyone on the island is in some way a murderer.
I liked this book a lot more than I thought I would, because even though I liked The Mousetrap so much, I’m not the biggest crime reader in the world. It took me a chapter or two to get into it, and then I was off. I read it all in the one weekend, which is unusual for me, and I have to admit that I was actually terrified while reading it. I was just so into it. And the more I read, the more I felt almost as if I was there. I nearly put a chair under my door handle to keep out the murderer, then remembered where I was. It was great to lose myself in a book like that, even if I found myself fearing for my life.
If you’re wondering if I guessed who it was – I didn’t. There was one person I thought it was nearly the whole way through the book, but then they got killed, and I was left with no idea. When it was finally explained, I did realise that the explanation did make a lot of sense. It was very cleverly written that way. I’ve always thought that the problem with murder mysteries is that the ending is the most interesting part, and I’m all about story. But I truly loved living this story, and I would read it again, despite my previous belief that murder mysteries wouldn’t be good the second time around. I have been well and truly proved wrong, and I now feel that a whole new world of books has been opened up to me. It’s fantastic.