trouvaille

  Summary: The Scarlet Letter tells the story about Hester Prynne has a child out of wedlock when her husband isn't in town. When the society discovers this, she is branded with a scarlet A and she has to undergo public shaming. She refuses to tell anyone who the father of the child is. But then Roger Chillingworth arrives who the reader later discovers is Hester's husband, and he makes it his life goal to find out who the father of her child his.  Background: Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in 1804 in Salem, Massuchusetts (so cool, right?). One of his ancestors, John Hathorne actually a lead judge in the Salem Witch Trials and that is why Nathaniel turned his surname from Hathorne to Hawthorne - so he could distance himself from that ancestor. After he graduated from Bowdoin College, he returned to Salem and that is where he wrote The Scarlet Letter in 1804. After the book was published, protests broke out in Salem as many of the inhabitants believed that the book portrayed t...

  Summary: Spin the Dawn has been described by some as a mixture of Project Runway and Mulan. It is about Maia Tamarin, a young girl who dreams of becoming the imperial tailor - as a woman, she knows that will never happen. But when an official of the emperor summons her sick father to take part in a competition for the position of imperial tailor, she disguises herself as her brother who came back from war. She knows she will put her life in danger by pretending to be a boy for she will be executed if her secret comes out, but she does it so her father won't have to do it. She has to take part in challenges against other tailors who are much more experienced than her. Secrets, lying, backstabbing and magic are in the air as she struggles with the complicated challenges. And to make matters worse, she grabs  the attention of the court magician - something you really don't want when you are in disguise. For the final challenge, she has to sow three gowns from the laughter of th...

Recently, I have been reading a lot of Japanese books (which have obviously been translated – I can’t read or speak Japanese) so there is a possibility that you will be seeing more Japanese content on the blog. And I know I have been quiet for a while. I am so sorry. I don’t really have an excuse except that i have been busy with my studies and then it was the holidays so my mind was just on a totally different mind space. But I am back. If you are new, feel free to read my only other post. So let’s continue with my first book review for this blog. I hope you enjoy it!!! This book kind of caught me off guard. I have read books about musicians and the stress of playing in front of a huge audience. A book like  An Equal Music  comes to mind. But never have I read a book about the piano tuner. I feel like as someone who has played piano before and a few other instruments, you just don’t really think about the piano tuner. It is something in the background that happens, but you ne...

    About The Book Series   Ready For The World - Driver’s Education: All Brandon Delacruz is asking out of his young life is popularity, riches, and the girl of his dreams. But what he does have are good grades, a ten-speed bicycle, and his two lifelong friends, Josh and Ally, at his side. And together, they’ll navigate their way through the rigors of high school life. But unlike high school, real life doesn’t come with study guides. Brandon realizes that the girl he’s always dreamed about has been there all along. And as he untangles his feelings for Ally, something tragic happens to her family that changes everything. Now, Brandon will spend the rest of the year balancing his romantic feelings for Ally and his life-long friendship with her while also dealing with tough teachers, classes, and toughest of all, meeting the Filipino parental standards. Brandon will learn that the world moves pretty ...

“I realized I was afraid of living without him.” How to describe this novel in one word? Love. Even though at first this novel doesn’t seem like a love story or romance novel, this can be described as one of the greatest love stories ever told. The plot of the story twists and turns. And this gnawing feeling presides in your gut and you know, that Will and Lou are meant to be. You are not just seeing things. This is a love story and it is only in the last few hundred pages that when Lou actually tells Treena that she thinks she loves Will, that we can exhale with relief. This book is gripping. A page-turner. It is one of those books which you cannot put down even though it is one o’clock in the morning and you have a class at eight the next morning. You just want to keep reading. You have to know what is going to happen next. You need to know when Louisa is going to proclaim her love for Will and you need to know if her love is going to save him. But I am going to stop writing now. I d...

Calling all music lovers and musicians! You will love this book. As a musician myself, I loved this book. Get ready to relate to Michael Holme (the protagonist). For this book review I am using a different format – feedback would be appreciated. Here is Vikram Seth’s novel  An Equal Music  available on Amazon if any of you are interested in the book. About the author:  Vikram Seth is an Indian novelist and poet, most known for his novels  A Suitable Boy  and  An Equal Music.  He has received several awards like the WH Smith Literary Award and the Padma Shri for Literature & Education. Setting:  The setting of this book is mainly in London, but also briefly in Vienna and Venice. It takes place in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Type of narrator:  First person narrator. Summary:  Michael Holme is the protagonist of this novel. A 30-something male who plays the second violin in a successful string quartet called the Maggiore Quartet. He...

Normal People by Sally Rooney. A love story between two unlikely people, Connell and Marianne. They are polar opposites – Connell is popular and Marianne is a loner. All they have in common is that they live in the same town. Throughout the novel, their on-and-off relationship shows the reader that opposites really attract. Somehow their different circumstances and situations does not stop them to be pulled together time and time again. Even when they are just friends, the reader can sense that they still have feelings for each other and that their other relationships are not going to last long. Or at least that is what I craved the whole book through – for them to finally to be together and to label their relationship something other than ‘casual’. Because their love is anything but casual. Rooney stirs up something in each of us by making us crave that one person who truly knows us. A raw connection between two friends/lovers. If you haven’t read this wildly popular book yet, get rea...