Book Review: Maximum Ride

*Deep breath* You know those instances where someone starts telling you a story, and it seems like it's going to be really riveting and insightful, but they just keep going on... and on... and oooooon without making any point whatsoever and nothing makes sense and the whole thing is great disappointment and waste of your time?
That's basically Maximum Ride.

Maximum Ride is a series of novels which begins with introducing us to six kids who have escaped from a secret laboratory where they've been held prisoner since infancy and had their DNA spliced with that of birds. Soon after we're introduced to the 'Erasers' - human/wolf creatures designed specifically to hunt these escapees - and the 'flock' have to run away from their safe house and try to find a new place to live.

Looking back, even that intro seemed sporadic and nonsensical - How come the erasers didn't find them before? Why isn't there some psychological conflict about the lab (I mean, if they lived there since infancy, you'd think they'd have a lot of propaganda from that place still in their heads?) - but at the time when I found it, it sounded worth a shot. And that's how I wasted several months of my existence. Reading these books.




Here's a rundown of why I don't really like these books anymore:

1. It makes literally no logical sense.
You say that the flock can hide their wings under jackets? But just a couple chapters ago you said that the older ones have huge wing spans! To add to that, erasers being able to hide among regular middle-school/high-school students? You clearly established that they have no shape-shifting abilities and are huge, hideous monsters in appearance! The villain lures Max and the flock into a lab just to have Max fight an evil clone of herself and when she wins he just lets them go? Just like that?!?!? The voice in Max's head is literally someone else speaking into her brain? And the mentor/villain can do the voice, but isn't the voice? First off, this technology was never presented earlier and never appears afterwards, so it's VERY unbelievable, but overall it just has no point. Bringing me to number 2.

2. There's no significance to anything.
(Please note evil clone scene stated above.) No matter what happens, none of the characters change, nothing about their situation changes for the long-term (they stay with a woman for a few weeks and go to school, but this doesn't change their perception of the world or anything, except they get a talking dog.) And to crown it all off, 98% of the series is about the flock running from scientists who torture them to learn things about them and treat them like animals, and in the end, what does the flock decide to do while this company is still strong and at large????? Become mascots for an environmentalist organization.

3. Nothing is ever explained.
Weird things happen, villains show up, etc, and we're given no explanation at any time of how or why.

4. Every plot point and plot twist is sporadic and nonsensical.
It's as if the author drank about 78 espressos then just shot off whatever his delirious mind came up with to the publishers, who somehow thought that it was a good idea. It's like, "hmmm, the plots sort of boring now. I know! I'll make the little angelic character seem to betray the others and have this whole plan with the villains, but THEN I'll reveal that it was a plan between her and the main character for about... hmmmmm ONE HOUR. YES!!! I am so smart!!!!"
That literally happened.

You can get away with a lot of things in writing a series - being biased and making blanket statements about people groups (J.K. Rowling - Slytherins,) characters being super-competent (Eoin Colfer,) heroes having no flaws (Brian Jacques - Redwall) - and have it pass as a pretty good series. But if you just write as if you're on drugs, vomiting out plot twists and doing nothing to explain your world or develop your characters at all, nothing good is gonna happen. I feel like this series could have been really good, but as it is, it was thrown in the garbage by the 3/4 mark of book 1.

The importance of cartoons

 

  Excuse me for going all Crawford Lauritz for a second, but I once knew an artist who hosted a workshop on painting and art in general for kids. He taught us about pointillism, the color wheel, angles, all the basics. Some kids were more realistic than others. Some kids got a lot of praise, others got more sarcastic criticism.

     Anyway, fast-forward a few months. A sibling of mine sent this guy a letter (they were a fan of everything art, so yeah) along with a drawing they had done.
   The response?

                                                     "Still drawing cartoons, I see."

   Okay, I'll admit, some art is more impressive than others. Not everyone can do this:

    But... really? Is the above art form the only acceptable, professional art form? I would disagree. And so would Picasso. So would Van Gogh. So would Munch ('Scream'-man.)
   I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive to get better with our art. This is an example of the growth of my art:

    
       Now, it's not a huge improvement, and there are still plenty of flaws, but it's an improvement, and you know what? It's the art form that makes me happy! I mean, sure, the masterpiece paintings are amazing (especially when you can see them in person) but I just like the cartoony/anime art form. It appeals to me.
      So, to cut a long story short, I don't think we should be so dismissive of art that isn't a 'masterpiece'. Sometimes it's even what makes the artist happy, so if you go: "Are you still drawing that?" it's like saying: "You're still eating pizza?" "You're still wearing non-skinny jeans?" "You still have a dog?" and you know how ridiculous and stuck-up that sounds?
      Besides, some of us want to do more than paint farm-life, and some of us should, I think, honestly. Because God has given us all unique interests and skills and the choice and opportunities to use them to glorify him. Some of us could be painters of masterpieces, others could be comic-book artists. And may I just say, Calvin and Hobbes had a greater impact on me as a kid than Rembrant did.

The Mortal Engines - A book review

Okay, so I saw the trailer for Peter Jackson's 'Mortal Engines' film adaptation coming out soon and thought "hey, they got Hugo Weaving to play the villain, how bad could it be?!"

so I decided to read the book and see beforehand.

It was that bad.

Allow me to shed some light on the subject.

Problem #1:
Coming from a purely authorly standpoint, the style is hackneyed and sporadic, being poetic at first then dissolving into repetitive phrases simply for emphasis and viewpoints that jump between characters from sentence to sentence with no real organization whatsoever.

Problem #2:
The secretive character who spilled her backstory to the protagonist within one day of meeting him (and that day had absolutely no bonding experiences either. Except for falling down the same garbage chute.)

Problem #3:
KATHERINE VALENTINE YOU SIMPLETON! YOU FOOL! YOU OVERDRAMATIC PRISS! YOU TRIS PRIOR OF STEAMPUNK! (and that is not a compliment)
HONESTLY I had so much hope for her and then she went and confronted the villain ALONE without a weapon or backup and told him "I know everything! and here are the names and positions of everyone who helped me learn this!" then ran away like a sniveling child.

Problem #4:
SPOILERS!
.............................. they killed the dog.

Problem #5:
Bevis Pod under-appreciation.
The boy is honestly the most intelligent, kind, and witty person in the whole book so far and this is what he gets:
           
                      "She (Katherine) had come to think of Bevis Pod as a sweet, clumsy,
                      rather useless person, someone who needed her to look after him, and
                     she suspected that that  was how the Historias all thought of him as well."
                                                                                                                - Chapter thirty-two

Katherine, you were planning to take down the 400+/- foot doomsday machine with a hammer. He was the one who suggested a bomb. And you only grow to respect him as you watch him make a bomb.

Problem #6:
The savvy, epic sky pirate who gets killed because she let the villain monologue instead of cutting to business.

Problem #7:
The hero learns....nothing about how his civilization's lifestyle could be wrong? Or at least he doesn't start questioning it at all? Even when he sees innocent people forced into slavery because of it?

Problem #8:
I'd like a little more info on these monstrous half-man-half-machine creatures, please. They're interesting, but sort of blurry on the details.

Problem #9:
It would have been 464364x more gripping if there had been a threat of the main characters being turned into said monsters for their 'crimes'.

Problem #10:
All motives were one-dimensional.

Problem #11:
The only two characters who were (a) intelligent and (b) cared for something besides themselves or dumb revenge missions DIED.

Problem #12:
(Okay, I hated it so much I don't care if I spoil it. You're welcome.)
The whole ending of "Everyone you once knew and loved is dead via nuclear explosion but at least *kiss * we're together."

Problem #13:
The doomsday device was destroyed by accident.

Problem #14:
The main villain was flat and boring and when he went completely insane, it was so absurd that it wasn't scary.

Problem #15:
Plot points were random and had no depth (other than perhaps some subtle message with the doomsday weapon being housed in St. Paul's Cathedral).

So in short:

Yeah. Save your eyes the reading and hope that Peter Jackson does a 180o of what he did to the Hobbit.

On the whole 'dress code' debate....

There's basically no way to directly address this situation without insulting someone so I'm just gonna go for it:

"A woman should wear what she wants!"
"Don't I have the freedom to chose what to wear?"
"I shouldn't get dress-coded for your lust!"

We tend to hear that a lot. There's a lot of controversy about it. Honestly, I'm tired of hearing it so often.

So here's my basic view of it:

This seems to be going off two hyper-boled points, and that is (a) a woman has the freedom to wear what she likes, and (b) men are full of lust.

First off, let us admit it as fact, women are also full of lust. If you don't believe me, look up 'Lee Pace' on Pinterest and read the descriptions thousands of women put in.

Second off, YES, YOU HAVE FREEDOMS! Good for you! And me!

But...

We may have freedoms, but are we not to avoid leading others into sin?

Listen, I've gotta be rude, if what you're wearing draws attention to certain areas you wish wouldn't be noticed, then isn't that your fault? You chose the outfit, you looked in the mirror, you. saw. what. that. outfit. emphasized.
And there are limits.

I like these types of shirts because they make me look taller and less chunky, so I don't feel like a polar bear when I'm around my friends (most of whom are shorter and of smaller build than me) so I'm more comfortable and will have a more enjoyable time.

                                                                    (Hagrid is me)

Yet that shirt stays well above the breast area, and I'm earnestly searching for one which isn't tight across the chest either (I'm not trying to make myself sound better than anyone else, I'm just using myself as an example so that way any arguments that come to this post are directed at me and not innocent bystanders.)

But I fail to see how displaying ample breasts or wearing basically jean underpants could be either comfortable or pleasing to oneself. If that earns me the title of 'sheltered', then I shall address that in another post. The point is: don't wear something you know will get the wrong attention then blame the person who gives the attention to you. You're basically asking for it. It's like putting a beer in front of an alcoholic then being shocked and angered that they even thought about drinking it.

Spiderman: Homecoming Thoughts

Okay, so I'll try to keep this spoiler-free (which will be hard, because one of the things that made this movie onto my top 5 MARVEL movie list is a MAJOR spoiler but it was SO GOOD.)

but basically here's my general overview and opinion of Spiderman: Homecoming.

So this story doesn't involve an origin-arc. That's actually quite a relief to someone who's seen all the other Spiderman films, as it's essentially drilled into our brains: Peter gets a radioactive spider-bite, gets superpowers, does dumb stuff with them, roundaboutly gets Uncle Ben killed. But this element (or lack thereof) could be confusing for first-time viewers who didn't read the previous sentence.

BUT this version of Aunt May reacts much more realistically to the tragedy of Uncle Ben's death than the others (though perhaps rivaled by the Amazing Spiderman's May. I don't know, I haven't watched it in a while), so I can give her points for that.

Still....

Egh.

The villain, Vulture, gets points for appearance. I mean, seriously, his suit makes him look HUGE and when you get Peter's eye-view of their first encounter, he's pretty scary! Plus, he looks more like an army paratrooper or something than some guy who's hair migrated to his collarbones.
              

But though the fights were great, the real conflict between the two was a little vague. I can't tell yet if it was they both shared the ambition to stand out or make a difference but by different means, or if it was the classic "what you're doing is wrong" "says who?" (which isn't terrible, but in this case, just didn't make the struggle really personal).

Yet one of the most interesting things to me about this Spiderman is that the fight isn't based on himself. Peter has every opportunity to run away from it. Vulture blatantly told him to stay out of it. Tony told him to leave it to others to fight. Peter knows that he's not as strong or powerful as Vulture. If Peter walks away and pretends it never happened, nothing bad will immediately happen to him.
Yet Peter fights anyway.
Because if he's not the one to get hurt, it's going to be someone else (and that someone else is NOT his girlfriend!)

So probably my favorite elements of this adaptation is that Peter is the every-man (not the Super-Nerdy Toby Macguire or the Cool-Nerd Andrew Garfield, though they did good jobs as well). He is literally just a high-school kid, ambitious, unprepared, scared, and a bit awkward, but a firm friend to the friends he has. Yet he is also a hero in that he is the most self-sacrificing and caring Spiderman I've seen so far but to describe further would cause me to reveal a spoiler.

On the note of girlfriends, there is more than one female supporting character, and they not both going after Peter or at each other's necks! which is a lovely relief because this is a high-school story, Peter's only fifteen, he doesn't need that much romantic drama yet.

The two girls here would be Liz and Michelle, the socialite captain of the academic team and the constantly reading, messy haired and make-up-less loner.

 

Another great thing: they didn't portray Michelle as the stereotype 'loner/reader girl' (refer to Tom Hiddleston above.)

But as for the nitty-grittyness of the film, there are two almost f-bombs, one of which is Liz playing a 'game' with some of her friends, 'f-, marry, kill', and various other swearwords, an insult name given to Peter references to part of the male anatomy (though it's only mentioned twice), Peter undresses to undershorts twice, Liz and May often wear form-fitting and slightly revealing clothes, Michelle gives Peter the middle finger at one point, and then of course the villain tries to kill Peter, and at one point turned one of his assistants to ash after mistaking a bomb-gun for an anti-gravity gun. In covering up for helping Peter on a mission, one of his friends says that they are perusing porn.

So yeah, overall I think it displays one of the best heroes MARVEL has churned out lately (so far) in that he is human, young, and genuinely cares for other people above himself, but the garbage they threw in does make it rather hard to watch without getting disgusted by the fact that this is the social norm now.

In summary:

Comment below what you thought of the movie and who your favorite character is!
I'm gonna go raid the cookies.