Initial Thoughts

To Kill A Mockingbird Review By Sithmi 'Shoot all the Bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a Mockingbird.' A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man's struggle for justice. But the weight of history will only tolerate so much. The plot for this book wasn’t very clear to me. But then as I worked towards the ending I realised what it really shows. Scout, our narrator, guides us through her childhood in her small Southern town where the children try to make sense of the world. A series of events, one after the other, test their...

Looking For Alaska Review By Sithmi "If people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane." Miles Halter's whole life has been one long big non-event, until he meets Alaska Young. G orgeous, clever and undoubtedly screwed up, Alaska draws Miles into her reckless world and irrevocably steals his heart. For Miles, nothing can ever be the same again. John Green seems to somehow always incorporate the 'search for the meaning of life' vibe into his books and this is his first book. There's also the teenagers that are unrealistically smart and very deep or heavily invested in something. But that's a good thing. It's a niche he touches on. And it makes the novel interesting. Alaska, the wild girl with a thing for drinking and smoking, is who we are searching for. She was smart and beautiful, and a tad mysterious. And I have feeling she's searching for something herself. But what? I'm not sure. A purpose in life, most likely. She is...