Olivia

Book blog for school project🙃

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Summary:

The Metamorphosis is a book about Gregor Samsa, a twentieth century man who wakes up and he is a giant bug.The story is him attempting to communicate with his family and failing, and being unable to show up for work. The story is a metaphor for feeling isolated and unseen by family.

Review

I thought the book was really good at expressing a lot of feelings that may be difficult to express in more of an absurd way. When Samsa was trying to communicate with his family, as a giant bug, they threw apples at him.l enjoyed the questions it raises about what it means to be alive and a person. In his head he is a person, but physically he is a cockroach. What is it to be a person if you are unable to communicate with fellow human beings.

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Summary:

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a book about a young college student who is successful but she finds herself suffering from mental health issues. The main character is Esther Greenwood is a writer. Esther finds herself spiralling into a depression and she is unable to sleep. She attempts suicide and the person funding her college funds mental health treatment for her. The novel ends with her meeting with her doctors to decide whether or not she is ready to return to school.

Review:

I really enjoyed this novel. I appreciated that it was semi-autobiographical, and how much the main character was inspired by the author. It was a good view into the author's struggle with mental health and highlighted a lot of the pressures that women of the time faced.

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Summary:

The Existentialist Cafe is a book about the French Existentialists movement. Bakewell describes the lives of Martin Heidegger, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean Paul Satire, and Albert Camus, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and what their lives are like.

Review

I enjoyed the book. The book is part biography and part philosophical discussion. I enjoyed how it intertwined the biographical aspects of these individuals with their views and how they interacted. I found it interesting how it described how they debated with one another. Overall I thought the book was a very interesting historical account.

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Summary:

This book is a collection of poems about coming of age, womanhood and the normalization of violence against women. Gatwood's work would be considered feminist poetry. The poems are based on Gatwood's life experience as well as commenting on current events.

Review:

I thought it was a really well constructed set of poems by Gatwood. She is a really good writer. I appreciated the highlight on our society's normalization of violence against women. She is really good at conveying emotion through her work.her poetry can be upsetting,but it very accurately captures the frustrations of many modern women.

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Summary:

Man's Search for Meaning is a book by a holocaust survivor and a psychologist. The book is about how during the holocaust he developed his main psychological theory about people, that everybody needs their own purpose in life. It is very hard to exist if you don't have some sense of purpose. The author recounts in the book that when people in the camps had lost their will they would get sicker and die more quickly, but the people who didn't were more likely to survive. He describes how he applies what he learned and his theory to his practice.

Review:

I thought it was an interesting book because it is a unique perspective on the holocaust, but also on psychology. It was really valuable information because the holocaust is a very extreme circumstance, people are really down to their base needs and getting at what makes people tick. People in obviously horrible situations can keep going day to day, and it can be used to apply to people in a modern environment where people are dealing with day to day issues and grief.

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Summary:

The Stranger by Albert Camus is a story ab I thought the book was an interesting read. The imagery and descriptions in the book were really good. The story was not predictable, as it took a few twists and turns. Even though the man found himself in a situation of being arrested his ultimate conclusion was that life goes on even though he is going to be executed which is a pretty human feeling, that despite what is going on in your life, life goes on. out a young man who is living in Algiers. The novel starts with him find out about his mother’s passing.He befriends his neighbor and his neighbor asks him to write a letter to lure his cheating girlfriend back to him. The neighbor invites him to his beach house where they run into the girlfriend’s brother, who the neighbor wants to fight.The man talks him out of it and they leave. The man goes to the beach to cool off and he runs into the brother again he ends up shooting him with out any real reason why.He is sentenced to death for the crime and the novel ends with him accepting that the world is indifferent to him.

Review:

I thought the book was an interesting read. The imagery and descriptions in the book were really good. The story was not predictable, as it took a few twists and turns. Even though the man found himself in a situation of him being face with his mortality his ultimate conclusion was that life goes on.

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Trial summary:

The Trial is a book about a man who is living a regular life as a bank clerk suddenly he is arrested but no one will tell him anything about why he has been arrested. His life very quickly falls apart.He spends the rest of the novel trying to make progress in his case but ultimately getting nowhere.

Review:

I thought The Trial was a pretty good book.it is an interesting take on bureaucracy and how quickly your life can change. It was very enjoyable to read. I enjoyed the metaphor for other life situations where you feel like there are no real solutions. Kafka has a really unique perspective, which is where the term Kafkaesque comes from. The story relates to the oppressive and nightmarish bureaucratic world but also how we as people respond.

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Book Summary

The cultural toolbox by Anton Treuer is an in depth educational book on Ojibwe culture and traditions. The main audience for the book is Ojibwe people who are trying to reconnect with traditions or language that have been lost through colonization and residential schools. The book also provides a lot of examples from his personal life about how he integrates these practices into his life as a modern person.

Review

A lot of books about Native American culture and traditions are from a historical perspective. This book uses a lot of examples from Anton Treuer’s own life, how he learned all of the things that he learned and how he teaches his children, and how he maintains the traditions and keeps them alive. I think one of the main objectives he had in writing the book was to make certain elements of Ojibwe culture more accessible to Ojibwe people who may have been disconnected from it. Another aspect is to provide healing from residential schools. Reclaiming culture is a tool to heal against the impacts of colonization. Treuer repeats that Indian people are not what other people say we are, we’re not drunks, we’re capable people. Ojibwe women don’t deserve to be in abusive relationships and our culture has value, we have value.I was personally very fond of that aspect as someone who family members have been impacted by the generational trauma of residential schools.I found the book both interesting and healing.

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Book Summary

The Beauty of What Remains by Steve Leder is a book about grief and loss. Leder uses examples from his experience consoling people as a rabbi and his own experience dealing with his father’s passing.

The audience for this book is people from all faiths dealing with grief, but particularly Jews.

Review

I really appreciated this book. I found its perspective very comforting. I think it is a wonderful book for people dealing with grief and people who are coming to terms grieving someone they didn’t have the best relationship with, as that is something that is highlighted in the book. There is a focus on how to make the most out of what time you have left if someone is dying, and how to make peace with how you are dealing with the loss of a loved one to make sure that you are not left with regrets. There is an attempt to help the reader find meaning in the experience, to make sure that you and your loved one are at peace with how things end.

[mortallysublimewhispers]

did you ever finish Unorthodox Love?

No,I will soon tho

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“When I was young, I admired clever people.Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”-Heschel