my reading through the year

Here are some of the books I read this year including two reflections of my favorites.

The sun and her flowers

The hate U give

Cinder

Scarlet

We are Okay

Me earl and the dying girl

The princess saves herself in this one

Macbeth

Lord of the flies

Absolutely true diary of a part time Indian

Purple hibiscus- Three things I commonly find in Purple Hibiscus is power, obedience, and slow coming freedom. Purple hibiscus shows the perspective of a teenage girl in Nigeria, Kambili, living a very luxurious life but a dark side: her abusive father. She lives her life in fear and strict rules. Though she has a weird connection with her father, a kind of pride of him. This is easily recognized because the book is from Kambili's perspective, as if we're in her head.

Power and obedience is showed through her father. Her father's abuse inspires Kambili to live in fear and live by strict rules. Slowly she shows that she is finding her freedom. This comes in some corrupt ways but is understandable, due to her circumstances. She learns to finally laugh and smile because of an inappropriate crush on a priest. This leads us to question, is her corrupt view of Father Amadie just her acting out because her father’s strict life style?

Milk and Honey-

I read Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur. This book is full of powerful poetry and incredible messages. I noticed that the writer of the book would write paragraphs during the poetry directed towards the guy that hurt her. I liked to read this part the most because it was full of detailed feelings and describing words so it was like I felt her feelings too. These specific parts always made me think about how powerful he was over her and how he caused her so much pain.

This book was really a roller-coaster to read, she hurt, she loved, she broke and she healed. This book was so well written that with the slightest of words I felt her pain, and I understood what she was going through. Though the ideas and problems in the book weren’t all too familiar with me, such as heart break, I still felt compassionate for her. This book also hit a lot of important topics that aren’t often talked about, such as the fact that women aren’t always taught to be respected. My overall favorite part was when she realized how strong of a woman she was, and that she was powerful. As I was reading “ she is water soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away” I felt over joyed to see her understand her importance. Even though I found it confusing that after the healing she still mentioned him, knowing he was toxic to her.