Book Review and other ramblings....

So, yesterday, I went to Barnes and Noble with a friend and picked up a couple books. It was grand fun! One of the books I picked up was The Tale of Despereaux. I finished it this evening and decided I would write a book review of it.

It was a very intriguing children's fairy tale. The premise of the story (actually, there are three-four main characters) is about the littlest mouse named Despereaux, with abnormally large ears, and he doesn't know how to behave as a mouse. There are other characters, such as Princess Pea, the rat Roscuro, the maid Mig. The story is about how their stories all weave in and out. A big theme of the story is consequences and how actions will always lead to consequences, which I found intriguing in a children's story, a fairy tale, no less. It's not something that is talked about much, especially in children's stories, and the way the author wove it into the story was very well-done.

The way she wrote the story was also intriguing. She frequently (almost every other chapter) stopped the story to "talk" to the reader. An example would be something like this (simply an example, not an actual quotation from the book):

And then Despereaux looked down the stairs into the darkness of the dungeon.

Reader, let us pause and think about what would be goign through his heart right now.

It gave the story a very...personable feel. It was slightly confusing for me because this is one of the first books I have read that has literally used it as a huge plot-device for the story.

Overall, it was a very good, well-written children's story that I will probably read aloud to my kids someday. I enjoyed it tremendously.

*~*~*

So, the more and more I get to know people and start solidifying (as much as I can right now) my views of life, how to interact with people and such things, I'm realizing that there is a very strong pull towards indviduality. (Well, duh. Yay Enlightenment!) It's been coming up in odd ways, though. Just talking with people about certain ideals and ideas, and realizing that while in some ways I am very much an individualist, there are very specific things where I am most definitely am not and cannot be one. It's essentially a type of loyalty that people seem to not understand or have as much anymore.

It's an odd thing I've been noticing and will post more once I have finalized some of my thoughts a bit more. I will mention this, though. It seems when dealing with hard situations, individualism is not always the best way to deal with said situation. It depends on the person and the situation...but it's not something you can easily just say, "By not doing x, you're not healing properly."

Though, I will be the first to admit everyone heals and deals with things differently, with different approaches. Yay for the beauty and messiness of human beings.

And with that, I am going to go curl up with some tea (feeling a bit sick) and work on some story plots.

'Night all.