Title : The Cranes Dance
Writer : Meg Howrey
Genre : Contemporary Fiction
Pages : 384
Publisher : Vintage Book
Published : May 15th, 2012
If you like dancing so much or especially ballet, this is a must-read book you ought to have. Me? I like ballet (even only enjoying the ballerina's dancing) but I don't know much about it. It's like there is a sonorous mystery moves the ballerina every time they are on stage, dancing. It's what I saw while reading it.
"I'm standing in my dressing room now. I am here. i am in the present tense. I'm not always here, and sometimes here is a difficult place. Sometimes it is a labyrinth, or a Minotaur, or a rope I can neither let go of nor follow. It's hard to find the right words, but I guess I would say that it's something like feeling the floor"
If you have watched the movie entitled Black Swan, played by the famous Natalie Portman, you'll find it parallel with this Howrey's novel. But unlike Black Swan, the story of this novel almost attached firmly in reality.
What thrilled me the most about its story is the relationship of Cranes sisters. Kate and Gwen Crane. You'll find it both cherish and despise in such sisterhood relationship, revealing the private lives of two dancers and also the boundaries between them as sisters.
Kate is a soloist in a ballet company and Gwen, her younger sister,is a principal in that same company. For average people like me who know nothing about ballet would find that being principal is better than a soloist. But, Gwen is sick. She is recovering from a nervous breakdown and Kate just threw out her neck. She gets to play the lead only to fall victim to guilt, insecurity, and Vicodin.
"I threw my neck out in the middle of Swan lake last night"
Kate Crane is on her own to deal with her sister's condition.
Title : A Series of Unfortunate Events,
Series : Book 1, The Bad Beginning
Writer : Lemony Snicket
Publisher : Scholastic, 1st Edition
Published : September, 30th 1999
Pages : 176
ISBN : 043 920 6472
I did really want to read this book since I was in junior high school but just have a chance to read it now. And the thing I wanna say about this book is, damn you Lemony Snicket... It contains a lot of child abuse, sorry to say!
I know it's a series of an adventure story, but c'mon can you just give the main characters a short of relieve feeling than all the miserable one?? oh ya, I'm sorry I forgot that in the beginning of the story you have warned the reader not to expect a happy ending because all of them are misfortune.
"Dear Reader,
I’m sorry to say that the book you are holding in your hands is extremely unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three very unlucky children. Even though they are charming and clever, the Baudelaire siblings lead lives filled with misery and woe. From the very first page of this book when the children are at the beach and receive terrible news, continuing on through the entire story, disaster lurks at their heels. One might say they are magnets for misfortune.
In this short book alone, the three youngsters encounter a greedy and repulsive villain, itchy clothing, a disastrous fire, a plot to steal their fortune, and cold porridge for breakfast.
It is my sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales, but there is nothing stopping you from putting this book down at once and reading something happy, if you prefer that sort of thing.
With all due respect,
Lemony Snicket"
You got me crying Snicket, imagining the three lil orphans face all the misfortune themselves as if they were my children, yeah you got me Snicket, got my tears for sure.
As a kid who mostly read Road Dahl or Enid Blyton--whose novels mainly tell about the children and teenagers adventure, fairy tales, naughtiness of children, school story and anything related to a brightness and lightness life of children--I find this novel as a dark one, a different view of a children life. Yet, I can't deny that far out there live many children with misfortunes and abuses.
The Bad Beginning followed by three children of Baudelaire whose parents died tragically in fire. As orphans, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire have to find a foster parent to live with. He is Count Olaf who becomes their evil foster parent and who always tries to steal the orphans' fortune. Living with Count Olaf is a nightmare for three of em, many bad things happen. People die all the time, they're also hurt all the time.
Dear Snicket, if you really want to write kid's books differently than Road Dahl or Enid Blyton, it's fine. But if you want to write kid's books contain a lot of violence and child abuse, it's a nightmare for kids who read this, don't you know that they are so sensitive and vulnerable. Too many death, miserable, hurt, cries, and anything that could bring a melancholy feeling to the readers. Why don't you put older children or teenagers as your main characters instead of an infant, 10, and 12 yo children, please. I cry all the time the infant has to be encountered with bad thing.
Dear Sincket, are you gonna show to children that world isn't always exactly nice??? I can't agree. Children have to build their imagination a good way, don't teach them to be melancholy. Seriously I won't let my kids read this book until they reach 15 years old or more.
Lastly Snicket, eventhough I can't hardly imagine children facing misfortunes, I still can enjoy this book. Thank you for making me so melancholic :D
