Book Review: John Green – “The Fault In Our Stars”

This is going to be a very different review of the book than my wonderful friend Laura – on who’s behalf I bought and read it, – did on her blog. You can read it here http://mysticmonkey86.wordpress.com/2014/02/15/wow/. It’s a wonderful review of hers, trust me.

Anyway, back to the book. I totally agree with Laura: the book is cruel. It’s excruciatingly gruesome, reading about a sixteen-year-old girl named Hazel that is supposed to have her entire life infront of her but has to face the fact that it will be way shorter than expected every day because she’s been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. The Support Group her parents put her into is never more than a dull experience that she goes through with her mind drifting somewhere else. To everyone, she appears as heroic, a fighter, because she lived already three years longer than her doctors ever thought she would, thanks to oxygen tanks and strong meds.

Then her life changes when she meets Augustus Waters at one of these Support Group meetings.

Just as Laura, the moment he shows up in the book, I am in total awe for him. He’s witty, never gets tired of snippy comments, goes through life with literally living by the motto “Live everydays as if it would be your last”. And that is one of the things I have the highest respect for. He shows Hazel how much life still has to offer even when you’re terminally ill, I’d go so far as to say that he shows her the stars without having to ride up to the sky, if that makes sense. He makes me want to have someone like that in my life, who doesn’t care who somebody is, what they look like, if they’re sick or healthy, someone who just takes another person the way they are, no questions asked. My favourite part therefor is – without a doubt, – the one where he lets his best friend Isaac do something so essentially freeing (at least in my opinion) and, at the same time, selfless, while talking to Hazel as if nothing could be bothering him, that you have no other option than to fall for him head over heels (if he wasn’t a fictional character, of course). I loved that part. Deeply.

What I don’t share with Laura is the fact how much this book touched me deep inside. Yes, I was sitting on the tram to work with my jaw literally wide open when I got to the part where something is revealed that I would’ve never expected to happen at all. Yes, I had to pull myself together to not start crying in public. And yes, it was the cruelest turn I would have imagined in a book where I thought there couldn’t lie any surprises for me. From that page on, I couldn’t stop reading, and I read through the rest of the book like there was no tomorrow.

But fact also is: I didn’t really like the end. I mean…John Green makes such a big fuss about Hazel’s favourite book that ends just midsentence, with so many questions still unanswered…and in some way, that’s exactly what he does to his own book. I still have questions. And it bugs me. It might be a stroke of genius, but still. It bugs me.

Plus…call me cold-hearted, unemotional or whatever, but the book just didn’t change me. I say it again, it’s cruel to read about such an intense subject, it really is, but I’m not sitting here now, thinking how short life is. Basically, because I do that all day. There is nothing I fear more than dying, and I’m fighting the thought of it every single day to the hardest. I’m not seeing the beauty in everything now, I live my life exactly the way I did before.

I admire the talent John Green has proven with this book, and I understand why it has become such a best seller – because it is. But for me, no matter how heart-wrenching, touching and impressing it was…I read better ones. Who knows, maybe it’s just because I normally read completely different kind of books.  Maybe I just don’t get the book. Maybe I just don’t get the message it carries with it. Maybe I’m just amazingly stupid.

But what I do think is: John Green has written about one of the most delicate subjects mankind knows, and he has done it well. Very well. His writing skill is amazing, and the way he’s presented the characters to the reader is stunning. He deserves all the praise he has ever gotten and will ever get for this novel.

He didn’t totally reach me with it, but that does not, in any way, diminish his talent. Go read the book for yourself, make up your own mind and decide how you feel about it. Because this is the most beautiful thing about books: everyone has a different view of them, everyone sees something different in them, decides for themselves the effect is has on them.

And sometimes, they can even change lives. Just as Augustus did change Hazel’s life.

Top 5 Movies Of All Times

What makes a movie the best movie by definition? Well, for me it’s the right mixture of suspense, emotion, wit – and just pure entertainment to the edge of “I need to see that one again right now!” These are the characteristics that all of the 5 following movies contain for me – if you agree or not, that’s absolutely up to you, I always welcome different opinions.

1. Inception (2010)

This one is for me by far the best movie that has ever been released in the history of movies, although I know it slides sharply along the fine line of lovers and haters of it and is therefor definitely one of the most controversal movies out there. I know – and I can’t exclude myself from that, – that a lot of people just don’t understand that movie, with all its layers of dreams and plot twists and just generally that sickening end where the audience is left with the thought: “What? That’s…that’s it?” I agree, in some way, that end, as Christopher Nolan presented it, was not 100% satisfying. You’re never told if Dom Cobb’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) spintop, his totem, that tells him if he’s just dreaming or experiencing things in real life, collapses or not.
But for me, personally, I absolutely love that ending, because it’s just…perfect. Yes, I am going so far as to call it that. Because it is. I love that feeling when I come out of a cinema and can’t stop thinking about a movie, when I keep going back to it, trying to make sense of it, even if it drives me insane; it shows me that a movie has really touched me deep inside, which should be what all directors out there should be aiming for: leaving the audience in complete awe. The end of “Inception” does that, without any doubt. There are so many possibilities how everything has played out and would play out if the end wouldn’t have been the end, which in my opinion will never make people stop talking about it – in a  good or bad way.
And just to mention it: yes, Leonardo DiCaprio probably was the reason I loved that movie even more. Nobody would’ve been better for the role of Dom Cobb, at least not for me. He was breathtaking in every way, and I still ask myself why he never got an Academy Award for his acting. He displays the role of the delusional, desperate, heartbroken father like no one else, and there’s nothing he could’ve done better. Plus, the puns between Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Eames (Tom Hardy) are just totally priceless and give that movie the last little spice it needs.

2. Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Yes, there’s a Tarantino Movie in that list. And for me, rightly so. I don’t even know where to start: from the perfectly cast roles (Christoph Waltz, Brad Pitt, Diane Kruger, Daniel Brühl, Melanie Laurent, etc.) over the highly entertaining storyline itself to the twists, the list seems endless.
What is the most compelling thing about the movie, you ask? Well…the beginning, with no doubt. The beginning, where Christoph Waltz as the cruel, murderous Nazi-Captain Hans Landa walks into a french farmer’s house, looking for hidden jews and for 17 minutes straight, just sits at the farmer’s table, first talking to him in french (with an absolute flawless french accent that makes me, personally, melt to the ground!), then in german (in a quiet and somewhat menacing kind of way that makes the viewer’s skin just crawl), before he kills off almost an entire jewish family that is hidden beneath the floorboards…just WHOA. I am not gonna let anyone tell me anything else, it is the best beginning of a movie that has ever been made. Christoph Waltz is breathtaking in every way, and he definitely owns that movie whenever he shows up. The scene in the french café, when he sits down with Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent), the only survivor of the killing in the french farmer’s house at the beginning, who seeks revenge for the extinction of her entire family, is played just absolutely flawlessly by both sides.
A movie where a villain is just so scaring and menacing that you actually feel  your own heart jumping when he gets closer to the screen, just when he shows up…this is something that has not happened to me very often. And therefor, every praise and award Tarantino or the actors got for “Inglourious Basterds” is more than justified.

3. The Pianist (2002)

Yet another movie about the time during the terror regime in the Third Reich, but nothing could be more different to “Inglourious Basterds”. What makes this movie so mindblowing possibly is the outstanding acting performance of Adrien Brody as Wladyslaw Szpilman, a jewish pianist who one day has to face the drastic change of his successful life when his family is banished into a concentration camp on polish soil (and being murdered) and he himself first manages to get into compulsory labor and then is hidden right infront of the eyes of the Nazi Regime in an abandoned house, directly in the middle of the war, only able to survive due to the selfless help of a befriended couple – and a german soldier (Thomas Kretzschmann).
This is also one of the few movies that makes me lost for words with its entire scenery. The director, Roman Polanski, is probably the most controversed discussed directors of all times, but there’s no doubt that he knows how to put up a story and set it right into the middle of things – brutally honest and excruciatingly merciless, without any try of sugarcoating (in one scene, the german soldiers are breaking into a jewish home, arresting its residents and just throwing one of them, an old men who is sitting in a wheelchair, out of the window without a blink of an eye). It seems as if Polanski knows exactly which buttons he has to press to leave his audience absolutely speechless and at the same time, gasping for air due to astonishment and admiration for such a brave way to display the horrors of the Third Reich – which in my opinion makes this movie one of the ones that is very hard to reach; it has set the bar for any following movie about this history subject pretty high.

4. Dead Man Walking (1995)

I watched that movie in school, in 7th or 8th grade, while we were discussing the subject of the death penalty in religion class – wow. As long as I can think back, that was the first movie that made me speechless and really had me swallowing hard whenever I thought about it. Surely the subject itself is a tough one – death penalty is a long discussed and very controversal thing, – but what really got me was the main character, Matthew Poncelet (Sean Penn). He is one of the very few movie characters that you instantly click with, the one you like, despite what he might’ve have done. Throughout the entire movie, you hope, you wish, you pray that everything will work out for him, and just when you think it really might….it doesn’t. His death scene is one of the hardest and cruelest things I have ever watched in my entire life.
And Sean Penn is just mindblowingly flawless. You see the emotions on his face, hear his voice catching when he talks on the phone to his mom, when he begs Helen Prejean (Susan Sarandon), the nun who accompanies him during his last days on earth, to help him, to save his life at the very end (although throughout most of the movie he just is indifferent about what he has done), and you feel just so much sympathy for him that it breaks your heart – that’s at least what it did to me.
What I love about that movie the most is how it leaves the audience to make up their own minds about the death penalty. Its message is not “Death Penalty is wrong” or “Death Penalty is right”. It allows the viewer to make up his/her own mind, and it does it in one of the deepest, most meaningful ways any movie has ever done.

5. What’s In A Name (Le Prénom) (2012)

Who would think that a little joke, a little everyday situation can lead to a huge blow-up, resulting in a messed-up dinner, a bloody nose and a cleft family environment? Before I was forced to watch this movie during a bus travel of 5 hours to my best friend, I definitely didn’t. I had never heard of this movie before – mostly due to the fact that I just don’t like french movies. At all. Fair to say I despise them.
But this one changed everything. It’s possibly the funniest and most entertaining movie I have ever had the pleasure to watch; the actors are amazing, the story is cleverly invented and the tagline absolutely priceless. And just when you think that one problem is sorted out, that normal life can continue again, one of the family members makes a little comment, so small that everybody else would just let it go – and the situation blows up once more. I, personally, love this twist that Alexandre de la Patellière & Mathieu Delaporte, the directors, present us with, to a point where I never get tired to watch this movie over and over again.
And  even if I know this is just my personal opinion, I’d advise anybody who reads this blog to go and watch it. I promise you, you won’t regret it.

There are plenty more movies that somehow belong in here, and it kind of feels unfair to leave them unmentioned – but these are the five that inspired me the most, that left me in complete awe, in love or excitement and just pure joy. For me, they are the picture perfect examples of what movies should be like. For me, they are THE stuff that movies are and should be made of.

Top 5 Books Of All Times

After my last post about the Top 5 books by Stephen King, I thought it might also be a good idea to do one about the Top 5 books ever – please note that this is just my personal opinion and what I think at this point of my life.

1. Stephen King – Pet Sematary

What a surprise. You can read my full opinion here https://dreamtraveler86.wordpress.com/2014/02/12/top-5-books-by-stephen-king/ where this book has also the first place in my favourite Stephen King reading list. Basically, no matter how much my taste in books will shift in the future, this one will be always be the biggest book love of my life, because it’s the one that started my madness for King and reading in general.

2. Cody McFadyen – Shadow Man

What can I say about this? If you generally love horror movies and books that are brutally detailed and cruel – Cody McFadyen is your man. This was the first books he ever wrote, and the 2nd one that I read (after “Face Of Death”) – and boy, I will never regret it. For me, there are barely really compelling books out there, books that grab you, pull you into their story and don’t let go until you’re finished with the last page of it – this book did that with me. And more importantly, it was the moment I started writing on my own book a few years back because I was so inspired by McFadyen’s writing skills and his ability to reach out to his readers in ways not many authors nowadays are able to.
I absolutely love the story behind Smoky Barrett in general: she has been tortured, her face has been scarred for life, and a psychopathic murderer killed her husband and daughter, leaving her no other option than shooting him in cold blood. Nevertheless, she stood up again, walked back to her job and did what she does best, and that’s quite inspiring for me (even if I would never wish the horrors her character has been through, or other characters in McFadyen’s book for myself), because behind all the layers of gruesome, bloody and life-scarring proceedings, all the fall-backs Smoky and her colleagues/friends are facing through the story, they all never give up. Combined with the suspense that never leaves the reader with this book – what more can you wish for?

3. Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games Trilogy

I know this isn’t just one book mentioned, but when mentioning “The Hunger Games”, you can’t just go with one of them, can you? My favourite by far is the first one – first book I read in less than a day because I just couldn’t put it away (don’t ask me how I was able to work 8 hours that day and managing my own household). Suzanne Collins had me from the first moment I started reading, and I absolutely admire her writing skills, her passion (that you feel in every sentence), and her seemingly inexhaustible imagination. Sadly, I was a bit…”deprived” of imagining the looks of Katniss and all the characters or the districts because I only started reading the books when the first pictures of the first movie were released, but I think I can easily get over that, because it didn’t diminish the joy and excitement I felt while reading. Or, for that matter, the joy and excitement I feel whenever I re-read them over and over again.

4. Chris Carter – The Crucifix Killer

When the body of a young woman is discovered in a derelict cottage in the middle of Los Angeles National Forest, Homicide Detective Robert Hunter finds himself entering a horrific and recurring nightmare. Naked, strung from two wooden posts, the victim was sadistically tortured before meeting an excruciatingly painful death. All the skin has been ripped from her face – while she was still alive. On the nape of her neck has been carved a strange double-cross: the signature of a psychopath known as the Crucifix Killer. But that’s impossible. Because two years ago, the Crucifix Killer was caught and executed. Could this therefore be a copycat killer? Or could the unthinkable be true? Is the real killer still out there, ready to embark once again on a vicious and violent killing spree, selecting his victims seemingly at random, taunting Robert Hunter with his inability to catch him? Hunter and his rookie partner are about to enter a nightmare beyond imagining. (Source: amazon.com)

When I read this description on the back of the book while I was strolling through a book store while waiting for my bus home – I was instantly in love. I have never experienced that already the back of a book gripped me so tight and screamed “BUY ME! BUY ME!” loudly into my ear.
And Chris Carter definitely didn’t disappoint me. What I especially love about the book is the beginning: it begins at the end. I can’t say much to not give away the story, but the reader is already sucked into the world of Robert Hunter and Carlos Garcia, his partner when you read the first paragraph; it’s like you are fast-forwarded to the end of something and feel the constant need to know how on earth the two main characters got themselves into their mess. Plus, the little puns between Hunter and Garcia are highly entertaining, and they pull you out of the horrors that they are facing every day with just some teasing comments about Hunter not having problems in hustling women and Garcia being kind of “prudish”. This is what makes this book one of my favourites and Chris Carter definitely one of the best crime-fiction writers that are out there – in my opinion.

5. Laurence Rees – Auschwitz-A New History

Now how does this book possibly fit into this line of great story-telling books? For starters: Laurence Rees is telling a story, the story of Auschwitz, about what was really going on behind the scenes of this Nazi killing machinery. Never has a book about the Third Reich sucked me in as much as this one; especially the part about the poor french, jewish children that were taken away from their parents and had to suffer in more than one concentration camp, just to end up in Auschwitz anyway. Rees is definitely not soft-pedaling in the way he describes all the horrors in the almost 4 years Auschwitz existed, and for me, this is the exact right way to handle this subject – because there are still way too many people out there who think the Holocaust was just a huge lie put up by the enemies of the Nazi-Regime. Also, the book contains not only interviews with survivors of Auschwitz, but most importantly, interviews with former members of Hitler’s circle of murderous, faithful subjects. It seems inconceivable to read about these people describing how they perceived the entire situation, how less sympathy they feel for their victims. You’re tend to feel so much hate, but at the same time, Laurence Rees tries explaining the reasons for their behaviour, which, for me, makes it even more interesting. If you’re as interested in the entire Holocaust History (and the 3rd Reich in general) like I am, you always crave to finally understand all the real motivations behind the Nazi-Regime and their concentration camps – and this book definitely helps a bit with that. For me, the best book about this subject I’ve read so far.

There are a lot of other books that should be in here – “Gone Girl” by Gillian Flynn, for example, or one of the amazing books by Karin Slaughter, – but the ones in this post inspired me the most. If you have read them or not, if you plan on reading them or not, that is totally up to you, because, above all, do what makes you happy. And read what you enjoy the most.

Top 5 Books by Stephen King

Everyone who knows me at least a little bit knows that Stephen King is my absolute hero in the large pool of authors, so it’s just natural that I had to do this. Let’s go.
(If you want a description about each book, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_King_bibliography (click on the book titles to read the summaries)

1. Pet Sematary (1983)

Please don’t confuse the book with the movie. The difference basically is: the movie is shit. Not as bad as other book adaptions of Stephen King that made it onto the big screen, but…not good. Thankfully, I have discovered the movie AFTER I read the book.
I just love this novel to pieces. It was the first book that I remembered almost swallowing while reading, and the first one I read more than once. Over the past years, I have to admit that I lost count of how many times I actually re-read it, because hands down – I do that a lot with this one.
What I love about the main character, Louis Creed, a doctor and family father with a beautiful wife and two adorable little kids, is, that it is easy for the reader to understand his motives for the things he does in the story. The decisions he makes may seem odd to a normal mind, but if you think about it further, you see that all he does results out of his undying love for his family. I think it’s a lovely message (despite the horror Louis gets himself into).
The biggest reason why this book is my all-time favourite by him is the end. It has the absolute best end/epilogue in the entire world, there are no other words for it. It’s not always easy to have a situation that is described in a book so vividly that you see a certain situation right infront of your eyes, giving you goosebumps. Surprise: “Pet Sematary” did exactly this to me, and still does whenever I re-read it, though I know it by heart.

2. IT (1986)

I don’t think I have to say much about this one; I think everyone has at least heard about the story where a monster in form of a psychopathic, murderous clown terrorizes a group of young kids who pit themselves against him/it twice in their life. Again, please don’t compare this book to the absolute awful movie where almost everything is completely different to the written story – apart from Tim Curry as Pennywise, the Clown, it’s pretty much the worst movie ever.
Personally, I think this is one of the best books of all time, because although it’s quite long (1200 pages, approx.), the story never gets boring, because it switches between the kids’ childhood and their adult life. Plus, I love the message behing the story: if you stick together with your friends and believe you can defeat your worst fears – you can do it. For me, the times I have read this novel (yes, more than once, what a shocker), it was more than difficult to put it away for more than a few hours; it’s absolutely compelling in every way.

3. Under The Dome (2009)

This is one of the few newer books of Stephen King that are absolutely worth their money. Before reading the end of this book, I had only cried once while reading: during the end of “Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows”. Plus, this book is the only one of him that I don’t only own in german, but also in english – that has to have a higher meaning.
I adore the story about a mysterious “something” that cuts off an entire town, leaving the people inside fight for their life. Secrets are surfaced, and the longer the Dome is staying, the harder the fights inside it are getting. And just when you think everything goes to hell, the secret is lifted. I had a really hard time when to the end, it was clear that one of my favourite characters would die – even if he died being some kind of hero. Tears shed right there, I can tell you, and it was the first time I was pretty mad at Mr. King for killing a character.
Because I was in such awe about the book, of course I was excited for the TV show based on it that was released in 2013 – I wasn’t entirely disappointed (though the writers changed almost all characters way too much for my taste), but I’d say it has potential. And it’s finally a book by Stephen King that has made the screen that doesn’t suck as much as the earlier movies. High Five to that. Still, the book is one of his best, in my opinion.

4. Christine (1983)

You just have to love Dennis, the main character’s best friend, who’s the narrator for the first half of the book. The way King has written these chapters is pretty amazing, because they are absolutely vivid, funny and compelling, and you don’t have the feeling that you as a reader are completely on the outside – the first-person narrator sucks you in and makes you a part of it, in some kind of way (not that I ever want to be part of something where a psychopath car goes on a killing spree). Plus, the story about an outsider who just wants to belong and be liked is pretty chastening to me and one of the reasons why this one of King’s best and one of my favourites.

5. Carrie (1974)

Who does NOT know this one? I’m pretty sure it’s even as popular as “IT”, maybe even more. Whenever I hear that name, I instantly have this creepy girl infront of my inner eye, the insane look in her wide eyes and the horrible music in the background when she sends her Highschool mates straight into hell. Of course, that’s the movie speaking out of me – which is not entirely crappy, but actually pretty good. But the book even tops what was put on screen all these years back; the story is absolutely well-written – although it’s one of his shortest novels. What I like about it is that the story is kind of…”stalling” the reader with Newspaper Articles between the single chapters, which makes you keep on reading, getting past them and wanting to know how the story goes on. The fact that on one hand it’s partly written in such cruel details that you want to put it away and throw up, but at the same time, so compelling that you can’t even think about closing it for more than a few hours is probably the reason why it was the one book that helped Stephen King make good as an author – and god, I am grateful it did!

As you might’ve noticed, 4 of these 5 books were written in the 80’s. Fact is: the books he wrote in that decade where his best, that was the time when, obviously, he was at his most creative point in life. And for me, the books that he wrote back then will forever be my favourites and something no other writer (in my opinion) will ever be able to reach.

Book Review: Veronica Roth – “Allegiant”

What if your whole world was a lie?
What if a single revelation—like a single choice—changed everything?
What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?
(Source: amazon.com)

Beware: THIS ONE CONTAINS SPOILERS.

I just finished this last book of the series, and let me say one thing straight away: I honestly don’t understand why it got such bad critics on amazon. Sure, the end was nothing I had in mind when I started reading, plus, it was against almost everything I had read so far. I won’t say it didn’t satisfy me, but…well, let’s start at the beginning.

“Allegiant” was built up differently than its two predecessors; this time, Veronica Roth not only used Tris as a narrator, but Four, too – the first-person narrator almost changes with every chapter. I, personally, really enjoyed it, because it finally gives the reader an insight into Four’s mind, into his thoughts and struggles with himself. You finally get to see behind his facade, something I wanted to do whenever I read all the conversations he had with Tris; it drove me insane that sometimes, his motives didn’t seem clear enough, or even senseless and ruthless to the point of ignorance. “Allegiant” finally answers the questions the reader might get.

Plus, in comparison to the first two books, this last one goes without a lot of violence and war. Its emphasis is more put onto the truth behind the factions, the lies that all the characters have been told their entire life, and I admit that to some people, that might seem boring and dull, especially when you’re used to the war and killing of the first two books. I myself had some difficulties when over and over, the story lives of explaining facts of the human life, the differences between genetically damaged people – GD’s – and genetically pure human beings – GP’s, further known as the Divergent. I am not a biology expert, and I never had any interest in the things that a human being is all about, what makes them tick, so I understand why “Allegiant” seems dull and boring alot. But as the story goes on and people get hurt – and killed – once more, the dullness so many people might criticize fades away – at least for me. Because no matter how much knowledge you have of the human nature or not, how much interested you are in it, this book keeps you on its pages, simply because you need to know if the truth that is revealed is really everything there is. You need to know how it goes on, what Tris, Four and all her friends are making of all this input they get when they leave their home to untrigger the real reason behind their existence. And just when you think that there aren’t any secrets left, Veronica Roth presents another one, one that leaves Tris and Four making decisions that might change everything – including their relationship.

And that’s the only thing that annoyed me while reading: the constant fights between them, the constant questions the reader has: “Are they still together?” and “Have they broken up with each other yet or not?” Don’t get me wrong, I really am not the romantic story type at all, I hate stories that brim over with romance. It’s just that I got attached to these two characters since I started this series. I was always full of awe when they had nice, memorable and, yes – even romantic moments; maybe just like I was about Katniss and Peeta in the “Hunger Games” series. Seeing them fighting in almost each single chapter, just when you think that they have made up again…it’s annoying and kind of exhausting. I am a girl after all, and deep down, I always hope for a Happy End, I guess.

And that’s where it gets difficult now. Don’t keep on reading if you don’t wanna know it. You’ve been warned.

There is no Happy End. Just when you think there might be one, one of the main characters makes a decision that turns the reader’s world upside down and that – at least I – would’ve never expected like this. I admit, through the last few pages, I was crying to the point where I wished that the author would surprise me with a revelation that would change the inevitable; that it didn’t happen was heartbreaking to me, and unsatisfying at first. But on the last few pages, I changed my opinion – not completely, no, I would be kind of a cold-hearted person if that would be the case, – because the absolute end, as it is presented just before and during the epilogue is something I can live with. I will never like it, but my life won’t end because of it.

Plus, it teaches us what bravery is all about – what it really is about. The characters lost a lot of friends and family over a short amount of time, they fell to the ground more than once, but they always stood up again, one way or another, and they never lost their ability that things may change and get better again.

And that is what the message of this series, what true bravery seems to be. Not how many times you might risk your life for others but how many times you stand up again when you think you can’t.

It’s a beautiful and nice message that definitely makes the “Divergent” series my favourite reading material of all times. 5 out of 5 stars.

Well done, Veronica Roth.

What A Girl Wants

No, this is not another post about Leonardo DiCaprio. I had a long talk last night with one of my best friends, Sarah, about a certain girly stuff: men. And that made me think about a few things that I’d like to get off my chest.

I have always been a loner, concerning friends and relationships with guys I like. I haven’t had a nice past with either of these two groups of people, and maybe that made me a loner…no, it definitely did. But what bugs me is that a while back, and sometimes these days, my (girly) friends of now 7 years seem to think I am missing out on the best thing in life because I am shy and a loner in general. Like having a relationship, getting married, having kids, a house and a labradoodle would be the only thing worth living for. Of course – what a shocker! – all my friends are either in a relationship, married or one of them even has a baby boy now (who’s the sweetest little boy ever, for real, to be girlish here). They all have plans at one point in their life to built a life with their partners, and whenever I don’t feel like meeting up with them because for me, it would somehow feel like a group-couple-meeting, I feel judged in their minds. They are not always saying it, thank God, normally they know better than that, but I know they think my rejection to them has only one reason: ENVY.

And I am so sick of this.

Here’s what I really see as the principal aims in my life:

1. Honest, reliable & true friends
To me, this is actually way more important than being in a relationship with a guy. People you can turn to when you feel like giving up, people you can trust with your whole heart and who, even when there are more than just a few bumps down the road, will always be there to help you when you stumble. And to be honest, whenever I am about to meet my best friend Kim in Hamburg or the friends I now have in the UK – among all of them Susie, Sarah, Noor & Sigal – I get more excited and happy about it than I could ever be with meeting a guy for a date (because hands down, I’m horrible at dating). This it what makes me happy.

2. A good, steady & safe job
This should be kind of a goal for every person to aim for. I could never, and will never, picture myself having no job, sitting at home 24/7, either by choice or not. After more than a week of holidays at home, I always feel like I’m going stir-crazy and wish to go back to work, to my crazy, often annoying colleagues – people who nevertheless often are what keeps me sane 8 hours a day. Plus, even when you get home after an exhausting day, you can look back proudly because you have actually done something, reached something, even if it’s the smallest thing. This is what makes me content.

3. Travelling far, often & with a lot of beautiful memories
Here’s where it gets tricky. Being scared as hell of flying is a huge obstacle on this subject, but due to a lot of beautiful memories over the past 3 years, I have found other ways to travel around, and where I plan on going in the near future, I can go by train or bus – even if it will contain hours and hours of travelling around. And although I know myself and am pretty sure I will never be able to overcome my fear of flying: you never know what might change one day after all. This is what gets me excited.

4. Making different, interesting & nice experiences
Theatre, cinema, musicals, concerts, stand-up comedy, conventions, readings – I haven’t experienced all of the mentioned yet, but basically they are my life. They are what I get excited about, what I enjoy the most, because they combine all of my passions: movies, music, series & books. They are completing me. This is what relaxes me.

5. A nice, lovely & perfect place to live
We all have that one happy place that we want to go and live at for the rest of my life. For most of my life, this place was New Zealand, and since 2012, my new happy place is the UK. I love London to bits, and I have never been really happy to live where I live now, in Germany, in the flat and city I’m currently residing in. I dream and plan to one day leave this godforsaken city and country for good and live somewhere nice in the UK forever. With all external circumstances falling together into one piece, that is. This is what keeps me going.

THESE are the things I want, the things that make me happy, the things that make me who I am. Not a guy, not a marriage, not having a family. I’m not delusional, somewhere in the back of my mind there is the tiny spot that – of course – somehow hopes there’ll be a soulmate at the other end one day. But I am not searching for him. I’m not waiting for him. One of my friends, Laura, is kind of a role model for me in that: she raises her two kids all on her own in the best way a mother could do; her kids are well-educated, polite, nice and lovely. Laura doesn’t need a man to raise them to excellent people one day – she knows women should be more emancipated than a lot of them actually are, and I just know she’ll look back on her life one day and know she doesn’t need to have any regrets (Plus, she’s an amazing writer; one of my dreams is becoming an author one day, but compared to her, I am crap. Really crap. She’s funny, sarcastic, blunt and highly entertaining, in comparison to my poor tries of writing. Check out for yourself: mysticmonkey86.wordpress.com). I’ll be perfectly fine without a partner, if that’s what the rest of my life is holding for me. I have never known anything else, and the sooner people – friends – stop seeing me in a relationship to see me in a happy place and start realizing that what I’m doing and dreaming of is what will REALLY make me happy, the better.

Book Review: Veronica Roth – “Insurgent”

Tris’s initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so. (Source: amazon.com)

The 2nd book of the “Divergent” Series begins exactly where the 1st one ended, and there are no time gaps between both of them, which some people might enjoy, others don’t. Me, personally, was a bit surprised that it started at almost exactly the scene where it ended in “Divergent”, as I had expected at least a little time gap, a few weeks or something. But in retrospect, I think it was a good decision of Veronica Roth to write like this; that way, the story doesn’t forfeit anything of its rush, of it straight line of narration. The reader still feels like he/she’s part of the story, and it’s also a smart move of the author: once you ended “Divergent”, you want to start “Insurgent”, and as soon as you realized it’s starts where it left off, it’s absolutely impossible to put the book away (at least for me).

The two basic lines of the 2nd book are simple: love and secrets. Tris and Four (if you haven’t read my 1st blog about this series and only stumbled about this one, I won’t give away his real identity, to save you the suspense) struggle between their relationship that becomes stronger with each day and, at the same time, reasons that pile up infront of them, getting them into nasty fights over and over again. The fact that Four’s father and, in the middle of the book, even his mother – who had been announced dead for years – take part in the fight against the Erudite that try to take control of the other factions, doesn’t help: neither of them is trusted, and Tris finds herself on a thin line between deciding whether the greater good of the factions – meaning finding and revealing the truth about them – is more important than the relationship with the man she loves.

What I loved about the book was the fact that almost every main character seems to have to hide something; the secrets are practically jumping into your face, and just when you think you have found out one of them, something is scratching at the back of your mind, telling you that there is more to the situation than is out in the open. Especially Peter fascinated me in “Insurgent”. While he had been the biggest asshole on the planet in “Divergent”, trying to kill Tris two times,  devoting his life to make her life a living hell, he seems to have soften as the story goes on. It feels like he questions his earlier decisions, that he might become a good person after all…and what his story moves into in that 2nd book is definitely one of the highlights, because it is kind of surprising for the reader (though, personally, it was a bit predictable, but I think I’m just overly sensitive about these things).

Plus, the entire twists and turns in “Insurgent” were what practically glued me to my Kindle. You can never be sure which way one of the character turns, who will be left behind, what secrets are going to be revealed, and everytime, just when you think that Tris is done, or anyone of the others, the story does a turn and everything changes. It can be slightly annoying how often Tris and Four are at the edge of a break-up (that’s probably the thing that annoyed me a bit: the huge focus on their love story, but I think that’s part of how this series works), but when they find their way back to each other, the reader finds himself back in awe for them, anyways.

The end of the book was…flawless might be the best way to describe it. I love it when a book ends on a twist that you would’ve never expected the way it happened, because that’s what keeps you reading – especially when reading a book series. And the end of “Insurgent” definitely did that to me.

Resumé: thumbs up again for Veronica Roth and the 2nd book of the “Divergent” series, even if I – personally – enjoyed its predecessor a slightly bit more.