The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 14 Aug 2011 02:13 AM PDT FOR the week ending Aug 7, 2011: Non-fiction 1. A Doctor In The House: The Memoirs Of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad by Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad 2. Lee Kuan Yew: Hard Truths To Keep Singapore Going by Han Fook Kwang et al 3. Einstein: The Life And Times by Ronald W. Clark 4. Heaven Is For Real by Todd Burpo & Lynn Vincent 5. Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff 6. Area 51: An Uncensored History Of America's Top Secret Military Base by Annie Jacobsen 7. Brain Rules: 12 Principles For Surviving And Thriving At Work, Home, And School by John Medina 8. The Shadow Effect: Illuminating The Hidden Power Of Your True Self by Deepak Chopra, et al 9. I Am: The Power Of Discovering Who You Really Are by Howard Falco 10. Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice In The Dock ( updated edition) by Alan Shadrake Fiction 1. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King 2. Insatiable: The Stakes Have Never Been Higher by Meg Cabot 3. The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht 4. Fall Of Giants by Ken Follett 5. Love Always by Harriet Evans 6. The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender 7. Sleeping Arrangements by Madeleine Wickham 8. The Fall by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan 9. Luka And The Fire Of Life by Salman Rushdie 10. The Abduction (Theodore Boone #2) by John Grisham Weekly list compiled by MPH Mid Valley Megamall, Kuala Lumpur; www.mphonline.com. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| The eternal search for identity Posted: 14 Aug 2011 02:11 AM PDT Reinventing yourself in a dystopian future ain't easy! DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth (Katherine Tegen Books, 487 pages, ISBN: 978-0062084323) is set in a world – a future or alternate version of Chicago – that is divided into factions, each one ruled by a particular human quality. There's Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. In your 16th year of life you have to choose which faction you want to belong to and your choice is supposed to be guided by your personality. Beatrice Prior has grown up in the Abnegation faction, raised by her parents to always put others first. But the compulsory aptitude test taken on the eve of the Choosing Ceremony reveals that she is suited not to just one faction, but three. Those with such results are rare and they are called Divergent. The woman in charge of testing Beatrice makes her promise to keep her unusual results a secret – for her own safety. The results of the aptitude tests are meant to help 16-year-olds decide on their faction, but Beatrice keeps telling herself that her decision shouldn't be influenced by anything other than loyalty to her family. Nevertheless, at the choosing ceremony, her brother's decision to switch factions spurs Beatrice to choose to leave her parents and join Dauntless. Divergent is one of the many recently published young adult (YA) books that are set in dystopian worlds. The huge success of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy probably encouraged more dystopian fiction to be published but it's by no means a new publishing trend, or fad. Dystopian fiction has always been popular with and compelling to readers of all ages. I can see the appeal of these stories to teenagers. Common themes in YA dystopian fiction are the search for identity, and challenging authority and the status quo. Indeed, they are themes found in most teenage fiction no matter the genre. Identity is a big thing with teens. Your teenage years are spent hating yourself, finding yourself, denying yourself, trying to be someone you're not, trying not to acknowledge who you really are. This continues, as far as I can remember, until your late 20s. Adolescents also spend a lot of time and energy imagining that everyone who has authority over them is out to get them. These are the "I didn't ask to be born", "You're ruining my life" and "Stop controlling me" years. A lot of doors are slammed during this phase of life. It's no wonder that there's the need to escape into fiction that often details the bloody slaughter of those in power! Having chosen Dauntless, Beatrice must survive initiation into this bold faction whose members sometimes seem to not only be brave but also possess a death wish. In an effort to start anew, she changes her name to Tris and allows one of her new friends, another transfer (from Candor), to give her a makeover. These are merely symbolic gestures. The real adjustment is the struggle to let go of everything she's learnt while growing up in Abnegation, and to reinvent herself from the inside out: Tris' beliefs, attitudes, instincts and responses must be shaped to fit her new identity as a one of the Dauntless. Of course, this proves difficult, especially as Tris has shown that she is also suited to the Erudite and her home faction, Abnegation. With her struggle to conform to just one human quality, I expect Tris to start questioning the need for anyone to restrict themselves to being just one kind of person. I am only at chapter nine of the book and I plan to take my time because I'm rather enjoying myself. Tris' switch from Abnegation to Dauntless is quite an extreme one and I look forward to some interesting developments as she continues to explore her newfound freedom and tentatively allow herself to enjoy sensations, emotions and thoughts not allowed before. The warning to keep her Divergent status a secret is obviously significant to how the plot progresses and Tris develops. I'm pretty certain that there are big changes ahead for Tris's world and it won't stop here. According to her website, Roth has completed the draft of the sequel, Insurgent. And, yes, it's a trilogy, so I wonder what the third book will be called. Answers on a postcard, but my money is on Emergent or Resurgent. I can't guarantee that I'll get to the end of this book and recommend it wholeheartedly, or that I'll read books two and three. All I can say is, I'm a quarter way through Divergent and I want to keep reading. > Daphne Lee reads to wonder and wander, be amazed and amused, horrified and heartened and inspired and comforted. She wishes more people will try it too. Send e-mails to the above address and check out her blog at daphne.blogs.com/books. Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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