Writing Prompt

Hey, guys!

For this writing prompt, I thought I would ask you all to look back on the holidays, whether you celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, or any other holiday during any other time of the year.

Think back on whichever holiday you want and write about your family's traditions. For example, every Christmas Eve, I have dinner with my family at my great aunt's house so I can see all of my mom's cousins and we all eat amazing food, open some presents, that kind of thing. On Christmas day, we open presents in the morning and then have dinner in the early evening with my aunt, uncle, and little cousins. On New Year's Day, my mom, my brother, and I usually go bowling with my great aunt and my mom's cousins.

These are the kinds of traditions I'm talking about. The traditions could be something like this (just getting together with family to eat and talk), or it could be something completely different. Maybe you go to Time Square every New Year's Eve. Maybe you and your spouse go out on a special date on Valentine's Day. Maybe you only ever drink on St. Patrick's Day.

Any of these could be the perfect setting for a short story, or even the beginning of a novel. You don't necessarily have to write it from your own perspective; it could be from the perspective of a friend or family member, or maybe a character of your own creation.

This tradition does not even have to happen the way it always does. Maybe something totally bizarre happens that could be the major plot. It's entirely up to you how you want to write it.

Check back tomorrow for a new book review.

Happy writing!!

New Plan . . .

Hey, guys!

Sorry, but with the holidays and my father's birthday I haven't been able to post much last week.

However, I have a new plan for my blog. I will post three times a week on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. A book review will be posted every Wednesday, and writing exercises, writing prompts, and reviews for video games, movies, etc. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

This way, I have more time to read books that I can review in the future. This method will also make it a lot easier for me to post on my blog during the next semester.

Thanks for the readership and thanks for humoring me on this. Check back on Tuesday and I promise I will have something posted by then.

Happy reading!

Northern Ireland

Hey, guys!

Pinterest has been a total distraction, but gosh-darnit I am going to write this review if it's the last thing I do!

The semester is over, but I still have a couple of books to review from my English class. The second to last book I read for that course was This Human Season by Louise Dean, which takes place in Northern Ireland.

For those of you who have never been to Ireland (like me), you've probably heard that it's a beautiful country. And from the pictures I've seen, it definitely is. Northern Ireland, however, was ravaged by a brutal civil war in the seventies between the British loyalists and the Irish Republican Army.

Louise Dean, a British author, explores the perspectives of both sides of this war in Belfast during the seventies. One character, Kathleen, is the mother of a young IRA member who has been arrested by the British in a prison known as the Maze. The other character, John Dunn, is a prison officer at the Maze.

With these two characters, Dean weaves an intricate war story in which both perspectives are available to the reader. In this way, the reader can sympathize with the IRA prisoners who endure hunger strikes and who receive abuse at the hands of British officers and the reader can sympathize with a prison officer who disagrees with the harsh treatment of prisoners.

This book may be a bit confusing to those who do not have any background information on the civil war in Northern Ireland from the seventies. Basically, the IRA fought for equal political rights for Irish citizens. When IRA members were arrested, they demanded their rightful status as prisoners of war rather than as common criminals. They were refused this right.

In turn, the prisoners refused to wear prison uniforms, instead wearing blankets around themselves. They also refused to groom themselves, growing out their hair and beards. They even wrote on the walls with their own feces to make a point.

When that didn't work, they went on hunger strikes. The first of these men was actually elected into office to represent Irish citizens - unfortunately, he was also the first to die. Enough of these men died that their mothers took the rest off of the hunger strike. Soon afterwards, though, they were given the prisoner of war status that they deserved.

The events of Dean's novel occur before the hunger strikes, but the descriptions of the poor treatment of prisoners were visual enough.

For those of you interested in the history of Northern Ireland or in prisoners of war stories, I recommend this book. It was a little confusing for me when I first read it, but once I had some background on the actual events that this novel is based on, it was much easier to understand and an interesting read.

Sorry it took so long, guys, but I finally wrote this review. Leave comments below if you have any feedback or any ideas for other books I should read and review. Hope you enjoyed!

Happy reading!

Update

Hey, guys!

Sorry, it's been so long, but finals are finally over and I now have a few books that I've just read that I can review soon. Thank you, all of you, for being so patient.

It's going to take me a bit of discipline to get back into the swing of things, as far as blogging goes, but I'm going to do it. There may also be weeks when I won't be able to write reviews because I'm in the process of reading a book and won't be able to write about another one because it's been so long since I've been able to read for fun.

That being said, I'll probably have a lot of writing exercises posted those weeks. But fear not! I already have a few books ready to be reviewed. This Human Season by Louise Dean and A Fort of Nine Towers by Qais Akbar Omar are the last two books I read for school.

Some of you may remember that I wrote a review for Ashes by Ilsa J. Bick over the summer. I just finished the second book in the trilogy, Shadows, and will also post that review at some point. I am also currently reading The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, which is part of a fresh batch of books I picked up at the library. So, don't worry, there will be plenty of reviews coming soon.

Again, thank you all for your patience. You guys are the best! Check back tomorrow for a new review.

Happy reading!