Reading Ladders

Ordered By Last To Most Recently Read Novels:

 

Title and Author	# of Pages	Date Started	Date Completed	Pages	Rating
1. The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini	394	April 1st, 2019	April 16, 2019	20	5
2. Cinder By Marissa Meyer	385	April 17th, 2019	April 30,  2019	25	4.5

 

Total Pages Read:

Altogether I read 779  pages throughout the course of the month.

394 + 385 =  779

On a weekly basis, I would read approximately 108 pages.

779 = 108/Week

During the month of April, my daily reading count was 14 pages per day on average.

108/7 = 14/Day

This is the number of pages that I read daily, on average based on how busy or vacant my schedule was, it would vary to be more or less. If I knew that I would have less time to read on a particular day due to school work that I have than I would read extra on the days that I had less work or get some of the reading done at school within the duration of the breaks that I was able to get.

 

Top Two Books:

 

 

• The Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini   

 

I have previously read A Thousand Splendid Suns which is written by Khaled Hosseini, and I absolutely love the style of writing that he brings to the table it is so, different. A gripping and emotional story of betrayal and redemption, The Kite Runner had me thrilled and moved, both at the same time. It tells the story of Amir and Hassan, good friends almost brothers, and also experts in kite flying. The two young boys live in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, and this year they are going to try harder than ever to win the kite-fighting tournament—a popular Afghan pastime, and this is Amir’s one hope of winning his father’s love. Though soon the story takes a wicked turn of events and their homeland becomes a land of war and chaos.

During these dreadful times, people are forced to make choices, and the young Amir himself commits an act of betrayal, towards his best friend Hassan no less, which will haunt him for the rest of his life. Amir and his father are forced to flee Afghanistan for America, and The Kite Runner becomes the story of Amir’s quest for redemption – righting the wrongs he committed all those years ago as a boy in Kabul. The story is fast-paced and hardly ever dull and introduced me to a world – the world of Afghan life – which is strange, fascinating and yet oddly familiar all at the same time.

But I think the best bit about the kite runner is its sense of fate and justice, of good overcoming evil in the end, despite all odds. Without giving away the ending, Amir ends up back in Afghanistan and makes a very different set of sacrifices in order to set things straight. The final chapter of the book is perhaps my favorite and one that I have found moving even when rereading it. The message behind the very ending could be interpreted differently by different readers, but personally, I feel that it offers a small sense of hope for both the future of its characters and perhaps for war-torn Afghanistan as well.

In addition, there are sections of the story that highlight what is happening in the life of the different characters and I found that it was amazing how the character were all intertwined in some way. Lastly, there were a lot of powerful moments within this book that really made my heart squeeze it was a beautiful read. For all of these reasons I have rated this novel a 5 out of 5 and I highly recommend this novel to anyone who needs a powerful read.

 

 

Cinder By Marissa Meyer

 

For the month of April, I say that I read this book as a luxury read. The tone of voice was not at all complicated to understand, the vocabulary was somewhat basic; however, was still this alluring essence that the book possessed that could not make me put it down. I believe that this element was the complexity of the storyline. The author Marissa Meyer had done an amazing job creating an entire universe based on cyborgs, a deadly virus, and the classic fairy tales that we all have grown up watching and reading.

Cinder, is a gifted mechanic in New Beijing, due to an accident that she suffered as a child many of her limbs and her part of her brain have been replaced with a computer processor and bionic parts. She lives with her stepmother and stepsisters (the Cinderella story essence) later on a plague comes down to Earth and it begins to kill many many people thus Cinder gets blamed for her stepsister’s sudden illness. But when her life becomes entwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she finds herself at the center of a violent struggle between the desires of an evil queen – and a dangerous temptation. Cinder is caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal. Now she must uncover secrets about her mysterious past in order to protect Earth’s future.

I am just going to say that this book is one of the best that I have come to read. There are so many elements to it that it makes this novel as great as it is. For instance, the mere fact that this story is based on a fairy tale makes it interesting already because may modern takes can be done either very bad or very good and this one is definitely in the second category. Overall by my standards, I would say that this book is not very difficult so I would rate it 4.5 because even though the vocabulary choice is not complex the plot really shines through and makes this book a work of art.

 

Goal:

Currently, I am satisfied with my reading level and the fact that I was able to not underestimate the power that a graphic novel can hold, however, in order to further develop both my writing and reading ability I must expand the complexity of the reading that I am doing. I plan to read 3-4 books preferably more within the next few months regardless of the fact that I  no longer have English this semester because English is also incorporated within other classes as well, thus it is crucial for me to continue to improve. For example, being able to interpret and understand complicated math and science questions will be possible solely by reading more. The level of the books that I am leaning towards are more advanced books which will allow me to increase my level of understanding and my level of vocabulary.

Some books that I want to read that fall into the categories above include:

 

• Woman At Point Zero Written By Nawa El-Saadawi

 

In terms of a plan of action I will continue to read during my breaks and free time and if I know that I have a busy schedule coming up then proactively read a little extra on the days where I am less busy. Finally, I plan on implementing the use of a reading schedule where I can organize how much I read and have a goal to work towards. Overall, I hope to grow and learn even more within the near future in order to provide myself with the skills required to excel in courses other than English.

Influence for some of the reviews:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36381037-cinder

https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/jul/30/review-khaled-hosseini-the-kite-runner

Digital Images:

https://www.amazon.fr/Kite-Runner-Khaled-Hosseini/dp/1594632200

https://www.amazon.com/Chroniques-lunaires-Cinder-Pocket-Jeunesse-ebook/dp/B00BNIR8W6