Catch-22

Hi all, spoilers ahead!

Last year we were all assigned to write an essay on a banned book. Well, I chose a book called Catch-22.

Catch-22 is a book written by Joseph Heller. Joseph served in World War Two so he had first-hand experience with the rules and sadness of war.

Joseph Heller's book brings up the absurdities of war such as the name of the book Catch 22. This rule states that a soldier may be relieved from serving in the war as long as they are mentally insane or unfit. The catch that the book is built around is the fact that the same rule states that if someone requests a mental evaluation they are sane enough to serve so there is no real way out and it is just an infinite paradox.

The main character of the novel is a man named Yossarian. Yossarian gets introduced to this paradox when he spends his time trying to get relieved from the army. He tries to stop his friends him from flying a mission by actually asking to fly the mission since anyone who wants to fly such dangerous missions must be insane and is therefore forced to be grounded from flying. But since he asks to be relieved from duty he is seen as sane and thus is not. It's confusing since it's supposed to be confusing.

One of Yossarians friends Milo Minderbender who is a mess officer is more than what he seems on the surface. Instead of just doing his job he also is trying to make income by running a black market trade for food and other services and he sells to both sides of the war. Taking his black market scheme even further he rats out his own base to the enemy getting them hit with an airstrike all to just create a need for his products that he is selling to make him even more money.

Catch-22 is seen as a classic must-read novel about the absurd and realistic points of war. Joseph makes no move to glorify war as he does the opposite. Finally, last year when I wrote my essay on this I realized why this book has been challenged many times. There is pretty intense language and some gruesome descriptions of war and violence.

I would recommend this book to most mature readers as there is some merit in the reasons that the book was challenged. Further, the character development and plot development along with the more funny aspects of this book are what caused me to love reading this book.




-Jameson

The mysterious benedict society blog post - Brandon Lee

    The mysterious benedict society is was one of my favorite books growing up and I had recently found a copy of it while cleaning my bookshelf so I decided to do a blog post on it. The mysterious benedict society by Trenton Lee Stewart is a and mystery book following 4 main characters. These four students have been selected through multiple phases of tests set in place by Mr. Benedict to carry out a missions and stop a secret organization. These four students must go through training in order to stop an evil mastermind who is trying to control everyone's minds and take over the world. This book sets a great example On how everyone must use their strengths as a team and collaborate to reach the destination of the journey. 

    

    All of the creative missions and puzzles throughout the book really made it fun to read as well as the comedic aspect. Also, all of the characters have really fun characteristics that almost portrays the opposites of each other. This wide range of personalities is what really made this book stand out to me. Even while re-reading the book recently, I really enjoyed it because it has been a long time since I have read the series, or even any fiction mystery book like it. Finally, even though it might be seen as a children's book to some people, I recommend check it out for the charismatic plot of the book.

Red: The Fairly True Story of Red Riding Hood - Book review by Naomi

 Hi everyone, today I would like to review the book Red: The Fairly True Story of Red Riding Hood. This book is pretty entertaining and interesting and there's various things I enjoy from it. However, to begin I would like to give a summary of the book.

Red: The Fairly True Story of Red Riding Hood. This book is quite good. It’s about Red (little red riding hood) and her journey to find something that will prevent her grandmother (granny as she calls her) from dying. In doing so, she runs into Goldie (Goldie Lox). The book starts by displaying their different traits and how that goes, well downhill… Red isn’t always the nicest or most patient person to be around and she can be quite intense or rude in the way she expresses herself. Meanwhile, Goldie is really annoying and basically everything she does at the start bothers Red. Especially because Red is looking for a potion or magic of some sort to save granny (who is a witch) and Goldie wants a love potion. I mean, seriously Goldie? You want a love potion and her grandmother's dying? However, as the story progresses she begins to get along better with Goldie, especially as she begins to see why Goldie behaves the way she does and what she really wants. They end up going on a bunch of mini quests to find magic to save granny after Red pulls a dwarf by a beard. While on their quests, Red finds a huntsman and a wolf which ends up having interesting impacts on the story which I will not name for the sake of not spoiling the book. Anyways, by the end of the story Red finds a shocking truth and realizes a very important lesson.

So now, what do I like about the book? Well, there are various things about it so I’ll start with the 5 things that do not spoil the book. First off, I thought it was an interesting yet important twist on fairy tales which I thought was cool. Red isn’t just depicted as some little girl who’s trying to give food to her grandmother and then gets attacked by a wolf. Rather, she’s depicted as a brave young woman who would do anything to save her grandmother. Second off, I enjoyed the different quests they went on. They were described with great detail and it was really fun to see the outcome of them. Thirdly, I enjoyed the character development and how every character had a story and a reason for being there. Every character plays some role in the story and the majority have a story attached to them. This is displayed through the names (since it is believed names say a lot about someone and their future), their actions/impact on Red, and even stories or details the author gives about them. Fourthly, I enjoyed the descriptions. The story and its setting was entertaining to imagine, which I always love in books. It was made even more fun with all the detail presented! Lastly, I really liked the lesson at the end (which I will not share here to avoid spoiling, but if you want to know read the spoiler paragraph). If you do not wish to read any spoilers, skip the next paragraph.

SPOILER ALERT - Further examples on points previously made:

So the character development is probably my favorite thing about this book. One of the ways character development is depicted is by Goldie and Red’s relationship. As mentioned in the first paragraph, Goldie really wants a love potion and Red is bothered by the fact that her grandmother is dying and all Goldie cares about is some boy. Well, that is until Red realized the love potion isn’t just for some boy who she’ll forget about. It’s for Goldie’s mother because Goldie doesn’t think she loves her anymore. I personally was not expecting Goldie to say that, but the reasoning for why she believed this (her name is Goldie so she should be good at finding gold however there wasn’t much more gold in the mountains) was not only sad but also connected well with the story and the importance of names in the story.

The quests are fascinating because in one of the quests Goldie’s memory gets wiped (a little, not everything) and she starts being a jerk to Red which makes Red realize she should be nicer to Goldie. I thought this was good because although I’ve always thought Goldie Lox (the one from the actual fairytale) was obnoxious and that Goldie in this story was also annoying, I didn’t think Red’s reactions were always the most rational/sympathetic towards Goldie. I also thought Red constantly hating on Goldie’s actions was kind of ridiculous because even though she’s obnoxious she doesn’t deserve all that, so I’m glad Red decided to be nicer to Goldie because seriously at the start she made it sound like if Goldie breathed too loudly she’d get mad and that’s just absurd.

So, the final spoiler I’ll give is probably the most crucial one because it’s the ending, so here it goes. At the end, Red confesses to granny what she had been doing. Granny tells Red that she isn’t actually going to die soon. Red is really confused by this but granny basically says that she said she was dying because, well technically, you’re always dying. However, you can’t prevent that. This may seem like a depressing way to view this, but honestly I thought it was a good lesson because death is scary but we can’t escape or magic our way out of it.

END OF SPOILERS!

So, overall, I would rate this book an 8.75/10. If you enjoy books that aren’t too challenging to read or are just looking for a fun twist on a fairy tale, this book is definitely one to check out sometime. I thought there were a lot of cool elements to the story, but I wouldn’t consider this to be my favorite book or anything. Thanks for reading my blog, I hope you enjoyed it!