V for Vendetta
– James McTeigue
In the movie V for Vendetta, I strongly agree with the viewpoint of V. He was tortured by his government like many others that were submitted to Lachhill detention centre.
So he sets out to seek revenge. He kills all the people that were responsible for the way he and the other people at Lachhill were treated. The government that is in charge at the time is NorseFire, which is run like Nazi Germany. V plans to blow up parliament on the 5 th of November, like Guy Fawks had attempted to. I feel that V was doing the right thing, even though it may seem that he was a terrorist or bad guy. The people I London saw V as a freedom fighter. I do as well because he is fighting for something that he believes will make his country a better place. These thoughts are kind of the same as Nelson Mandela, who tried to change his country for the better. I think that V in the movie, is supposed to be portrayed as looking like an evil person, but throughout the film you realise that he is just doing what he thinks is right. I disagree with the viewpoint of the High Chancellor Adam Sutler, who believes that his country should be living in fear and punished for being homosexual or having a different religion. The movie V for Vendetta I believe shows that you can stand up for what you believe, no matter who you are. It was a great movie and the special effects help to make it very interesting. When we are first introduced to V, he looks as though he is getting ready for a performance. I think this is a good introduction, because it gives us an overview of what V looks like.

Game of Thrones: A song of Ice and Fire
– George R.R. Martin
The text Game of Thrones is the first book in the series called, A Song of Ice and
Fire written by George R.R. Martin and it conveys ideas of conflict, battle and rivalry as well as some very adult themes. Set in the fictional land of Westeros, it deals with many families and their fight for the ability to rule the kingdoms by sitting on the Iron
Throne.
Upon finishing Game of Thrones I almost felt exhausted with the constant and ever changing battles along with, literally, hundreds of characters. My mind was stretched to its full capacity. The book is around 800 pages which seemed to fly by with the immersive story and ever changing parts of action and romance. The book is definitely aimed at an older audience as it deals with not only conflict between families but also within families. Whether that is from killing each other in a gruesome way, or marrying two rival family members together to form a strong alliance. There is a lot of strategy involved. The way that the book is set out is very convienient as well since it tells you which family you are reading and which character’s story is being told. At the back of the book was an index of all the families and characters which I found myself turning to quite often in moments of confusion.
Even though the book is quite action heavy I still found myself getting bored at parts, eg talking about history or discussing trade opportunities, and so I often lost enthusiasm for reading. The book also starts very abruptly and straight to the point with people dying almost instantly into reading the first chapter, that soon dies out and I had the feeling that there was a book that I missed since the backstory is quite vague. The book had me thinking and I was always left questions as no backstory was told and it was left to the reader to put together the pieces of the storyline. IN the end though I felt that everything was explained enough, it just took a long time to get there. One thing that I notice the was recurring is that we must fight for what we believe in just to stay alive in a cruel world. The story follows many families but I found I could relate more to the stark family. It consisted of many brothers and sisters who were almost always fighting in one way or another. One character,
Brandon, was especially rebellious towards his mother, I found that I could agree with how the author had written that character, occasionally laughing at some of the situations that were achieved.
By the end of the text I felt that George R.R. Martin had done a good job at telling the story of Weteros and the families, whether from the Far East in the deserts or in the north beyond the wall dealing with the ever changing threat of invasion from white walkers. Martin left me with a sense of accomplishment by finishing the book as well as wanting to continue reading on in the series to see where the characters go and to the consequences of their previous actions. I felt sadness at the end of the book as one of my favourite characters dies leaving me also feeling sorry for the family.

Charlie St Cloud
Charlie St Cloud by Ben Sherwood follows the story of a young man who can see ghosts after his brother was killed in a car accident. The story follows the love story of Charlie and Tess, another young woman who once lived in the community and is now missing. Charlie can s ee her ghost. The concept of connecting with Tess’ ghost and not her as a physical person confused me and I found it hard to understand how he would not know that it was a ghost instead of an actual human being. Quotes like,
‘she winked before turning and heading the other way back to the water,’ make her seem so real. Reading about these little things Charlie notices makes me worry about his mental health. The he finds more value talking to the dead and not the living. This also makes me think about the ways death of a family member can affect a person.
Charlie’s character changed from being an open, happy person into a closed off and morbid character. I had trouble relating to anything in the book and this made and this made it easy to put down. Charlie, as a character, had no direction in his life after the death of his younger brother. He worked as a garden keeper in the local cemetery because he was too afraid to move away from his old life but is still too afraid to confront his past so his character is left stuck in the same predicament for the whole book. Because I am so strongly the opposite of this
(always wanting to move forward) I found it a frustration to read from Charlie’s point of view. I found myself wanting to shake his character for most of the book. The novel often flips back and forth between past and present and was not obviously marked to show where in time you were. This made it hard to draw anything meaningful from the book’s message as I was more consumed by trying to figure out where in the story I actually was. The book is meant to be a love story but it had no other story to it. The book is completely about Charlie either being with Tess or his brother because it seemed to be the same scenes over and over again I got bored of the book very quickly. Although I did find some of the quotes to have more value than the book, ‘There’s a reason for everything, you hear, and though it’s a mystery to me now, I know it won’t always be so.’ This referring to his character being enlightened abou t Tess’ situation throughout the book. If ignore the rest of the book and only take this one piece of advice – to wait for things to become clearer later and not always want the answers straight away
– I might be able to say I learnt something from the book. I would not recommend this book to anyone. I found it lacking in both characters and plot. Its confusing content would make it very hard to take anything helpful or productive from the text. The book also made me think about what truly builds a person, as Tess is not physically there, there is more emphasis placed on her personality and the way she acts. I think the author did this to make us think more about what we value in a person, whether we judge a person based on their looks or the actions they take. Overall, I would not recommend Charlie St Cloud as a novel to read as it is hard to follow and hard to draw anything of value from.

Little Bee
– Chris Cleave
Little Bee by Chris Cleave (also published as ‘The Other Hand’ in some countries) follows the story of young African woman fleeing war-torn Nigeria for a new life in
England. I found Little Bee to be a very hard book to read. Not because it was poorly written, in fact I was gripped by every word and page. I found the book hard to read because of the great undertone of violence depicted in the book. One flash back in particular was a memorable point in the book – African guards force nearby tourists to cut off one of their fingers in return for releasing Little Bee who the guard is keeping captive, ‘give me your finger and I will give you the girl.’ This flash back shocked me so much to see how a person could be so cruel and ognor the fact that Little Bee was a person just like he was. It made me think about the lengths people will go to, to get what they want. Further through the novel we learn that Little Bee’’s village has been burnt down and her family killed. These moments made me realise how safe and sheltered living in New Zealand is and opened my eyes to how things are in other parts of the world. I am ashamed to say that I was intrigued during the book to see more of this cruel world. At times the book almost seemed unbelievable due solely to me not wanting to believe that humans could be so cruel to each other. These detailed scenes made me slightly uncomfortable and less than prpoud of the contribution I was making to the world around me. It gave me a sudden need to donate to World Vision, spread awareness or go on mission trips – something that would make me feel less guilty about how little I added to the world around me. Little Bee opened my eyes to seeing other perspectives on day-today life and just how different someone else’s life can be. Little Bee is younger than I am at the age of sixteen, although at every turn I found her character more mature than I could ever hope to be at my age. AS I learned more about her character, I built respect for the way for the way she handled situations that must have scared her, like breaking out of the refugee centre that she finds herself in in England, travelling in a country completely unknown to her. The journey to reach England from her tortured homeland is a tribute to her strength, independence and determination.
Racism is a very large topic within the book and I believe the author (Chris Cleave) wanted his readers to really think about racism and how it affects their community.
People’s reaction to Little Bee made me very sad. Throughout the novel she is judged by the way she looks and the colour of her skin and not by the type of person she is.
Drawing attention to this in a book directed at young adults seemed very smart to me if you can raise the next generation to have respect for other cultures and races then you are helping the way young people are affected globally. This made me wonder if I had ever stereotyped a person into what I thought they would be like.
Reading from Little Bee’s perspective put my ‘problems’ in perspective, making me feel ashamed of what I worry about on a day-to-day basis. Seeing the way that she was amazed by small things such as having power in your home or running water makes me reconsider how I see the small things in my life that I normally take for granted. Overall I would highly recommend Little Bee to anyone who is looking for a mature read. This book also gave me a lot more respect for refugees for people who move to new countries out of fear of their last home. This book informed me that everyone has a story and reminded me to look a bit deeper to see it.