Leave it to the Prose

by Aditi Adve Harold Crick is about as boring a man as you can imagine. With the dream and ability to become a mathematical theorist, he instead works for the IRS. A man of habit, he counts everything - how many strokes he takes to brush his teeth, the number of steps from his apartment to the bus stop, the minutes he allows himself for a coffee break. For nine years, every weekday is the same for Harold, until one fateful Wednesday when he hears a voice while he's brushing his teeth. No matter how much Harold tries to ignore the voice, it continues to narrate everything he does. His coworkers grow concerned when Harold describes a voice none of them can hear and send him to audit Ana Pascal, an anarchist baker. He inexplicably develops a crush on her, while she hates him and everything he stands for. He puts her from his mind, though, because he keeps hearing the voice talk about him to some imaginary audience. Deciding the voice seems to be narrating his life, he convince...

Overview: Fated   Benedict Jacka is a fictional book set in London, England and follows our main character named Alex. In this world, magic exists however, it is fairly underground and has been kept away from the public eye for a long. The main character Alex is a mage and is a diviner, someone who is able to see into the future. Alex has a traumatic past living with a dark mage (I will explain this later), and as such, is a fairly reserved person. He runs his, what I can only describe as magic pawn shop, in peace. He has one friend, a girl named Luna, who has magical issues of her own. But his life is altered when he is requested by one of the higher-ups in the light mages government (I will also explain this later) to help them decipher a puzzle the will lead to a powerful relic. From their he is thrusted back into the life he once lived as a prominent mage and we see the innerworkings of the society this book takes place in. My opinion (spoilers): This book was fairly o...

Zev M-M For what probably is my last post ever on this blog, I want to take a look back at what we’ve read this year in Language and Literature. This post will be somewhat of a book review combined with a ranking list. Remember that everything I say about these books (and other types of writing) is my opinion. I am not ranking them based on how well written they are, but simply how much I enjoyed them. I may have forgotten something we read, so if you notice anything missing from the list, or if you disagree with my rankings, please let me know in the comments. Honorable Mention: The blogs. I have really enjoyed writing these blogs and there have been some posts from others that are well written and engaging. It was fun coming up with ideas and sharing them with other people, and a lot of the posts were genuinely interesting to read. Still, I couldn’t realistically rank any of our writings above the professional texts we read. 6) Poems: While I really liked some of these...

Overview: Numbers  by Rachel Ward is a fictional book set in London, England, and follows the 17 year old main character named Jem. Since her birth, Jem has the ability to see the exact date in which people die, via the numbers floating above their head. As you can imagine, knowing exactly when someone will die can inhibit your ability to make friends, so Jem is fairly lonely, Until she meets a guy named Spider. But things take a turn when Jem sees that Spider only has about 3 months to live. My opinion (spoilers) I found this book to be fairly entertaining. The pacing was fairly ok and the plot was enjoyable, if a bit overshadowed by the more thematic focuses of the story. I did like the interactions between Jem and spider as I feel like their personalities really worked well together. Some of the moments of the story however, seem to feel rushed or make not a lot of sense however, as there is one point of the story where Jem and Spider go from being normal citizens to being w...

Hi everyone! After writing a few reviews of screenplays, I have gotten some comments from people who have never read a screenplay or wonder how they compare to books, so I thought I would do my best to answer that question rather than do a traditional book review. First of all, it is important to remember that with books, the entire story is on the page. Anything the author wants you to know, any movements or expressions the characters make, are all written out or alluded to. With a screenplay, settings, important camera angles, and occasionally reactions will be given. The rest - inflections, gestures, etc. - are left to the readers' imaginations. This can be fun if you watch the movie or show after reading the script and can compare how you imagined a scene with the director's and actors' takes. It can be confusing, though, if the story is non-linear or if characters' tones aren't obvious. I also personally find that scenes can sometimes get boring if there are ...

I hate to admit it, but I have yet to complete a book from start to finish this quarantine. For the most part, it’s my own laziness, but it may in small part be due to the lack of books in my house that I am curious to read. I know that most people have plenty of books at their homes and many of you will already know about some of the resources on this list, but hopefully at least a few of them are new and helpful. All of the sources below are free and provide full versions of all genres of books. These sources include a wide variety of writing, but I excluded those whose primary focus was poetry, fanfictions, video storytimes, or other non-professional texts. I also excluded more limited resources like Instagram pages or smaller databases. Lastly, while researching for this post I found a lot of websites that host writing contests which I chose not to include in this list but may include in a future post. Starting off the list, The Uni Library provides tons of useful infor...