The Secret Garden / Il Giardino Segreto - Frances Hodgson Burnett

   

The Secret Garden / Il Giardino Segreto

- Frances Hodgson Burnett

🇬🇧 Hello, how are things going? Today I'm here with a classic for kids from English Literature.

Check out my last review about A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins.

---

Today's review will be about the book The Secret Garden, by the British author Frances Hodgson Burnett. 

It was first published in 1911 and it takes place in England, in the Yorkshire. It is one of her most popular novels, together with A Little Princess and Little Lord Fauntleroy. It is seen as a classic of English children's literature and became so popular that many stage and film adaptations have been made. 

---

The book talks about an orphan child, Mary Lennox that at the death of her parents has to move from India, where she was residing, to England, where her uncle, a certain Archibald Craven lives, in a big manor: Misselthwaite Manor in the Yorkshire.  

When escorted there by the housekeeper Mrs Medlock, she discovers that her aunt, Lilias Craven is dead and that Mr Craven is a hunchback. Apparently since her death, the garden she loved so much has been closed and the key hidden and buried.

The more time passes, Mary starts to like this new ambient and all the little secrets hidden in there. She becomes especially interested in the secret garden and does everything she can to discover where it is. 

As the main themes of the story we can see: family and home, but also friendship; the changing to try finding your best self, a sort of regeneration; and even disability.

---

I really liked this book. I had high expectations about it because everyone that read it as a child seemed to be really happy they picked it up. And I was too. I was not disappointed. 

The book was short, around 270 pages, so it didn't take me much to finish it, and it kept me hooked and even made me emotional in some parts.

I really liked the settings since the Yorkshire is one of the places I'd like to visit and the fact that the whole book was about a secret magical garden to be restored was amazing. But that's maybe because I love nature and every single little flower, bud, leaf, and blade of grass. 

For ending the book it's totally recommended, a 5/5 (: 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

🇮🇹 Ciao, come stanno andando le cose? Oggi sono qui con un classico per ragazzi della letteratura inglese.

Dai un'occhiata alla mia ultima recensione su Un Fuoco che Brucia Lento di Paula Hawkins.

---

La recensione di oggi riguarderà il libro Il Giardino Segreto, dell'autrice britannica Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Fu pubblicato per la prima volta nel 1911 e si svolge in Inghilterra, nello Yorkshire. È uno dei suoi romanzi più popolari, insieme a La Piccola Principessa e Il Piccolo Lord. È visto come un classico della letteratura inglese per bambini ed è diventato così popolare che sono stati realizzati molti adattamenti teatrali e cinematografici.

---

Il libro parla di una bambina orfana, Mary Lennox che alla morte dei suoi genitori deve trasferirsi dall'India, dove risiedeva, in Inghilterra, dove vive suo zio, un certo Archibald Craven, in un grande maniero: Misselthwaite Manor in the Yorkshire.

Quando viene scortata lì dalla governante, la signora Medlock, scopre che sua zia, Lilias Craven, è morta e che il signor Craven è un gobbo. Apparentemente dalla sua morte, il giardino che amava tanto è stato chiuso e la chiave nascosta e sepolta.

Più passa il tempo, Mary inizia ad apprezzare questo nuovo ambiente e tutti i piccoli segreti nascosti lì dentro. Diventa particolarmente interessata al giardino segreto e fa tutto il possibile per scoprire dove si trova.

Come i temi principali della storia possiamo vedere: la famiglia e la casa, ma anche l'amicizia; il cambiamento per cercare di trovare il proprio io migliore, una sorta di rigenerazione; e persino la disabilità.

---

Mi è piaciuto molto questo libro. Avevo grandi aspettative al riguardo perché tutti quelli che lo leggevano da bambini sembravano davvero felici di averlo letto. E lo sono stata anch'io. Non sono rimasta delusa.

Il libro è breve, circa 270 pagine, quindi non mi ci è voluto molto per finirlo, mi ha tenuta con gli occhi incollati al libro e mi ha persino emozionata in alcune parti.

Mi sono piaciute molto le ambientazioni poiché lo Yorkshire è uno dei luoghi che mi piacerebbe visitare e il fatto che l'intero libro parlasse di un giardino magico segreto da restaurare è stato sorprendente. Ma forse è perché amo la natura e ogni singolo fiore, bocciolo, foglia e filo d'erba.

Per concludere il libro è assolutamente consigliato: un 5/5 (:

The Mirror Visitor Quartet by Christelle Dabos

  The Mirror Visitor Quartet

by Christelle Dabos

Hi (: I'm here with another review of an entire saga.  

Check out my last review about Mr Mercedes by Stephen King :)

---

The review of today is of the saga of The Mirror Visitor (Le Passe Miroir in French and L'Attraversaspecchi in Italian) by the French author Christelle Dabos. 

---

The first book of this quartet is called "A Winter's Promise" (Les Fiancés de l'Hiver / Fidanzati dell'Inverno). The story follows the new world after "The Rupture" that shattered it into many floating celestial islands. These places are now known as Arks, 21 that developed in distinct ways and where on each of them a spirit of an omnipotent ancestor abides.

Ophelia lives on Anima, an ark where objects have souls and are (as the name suggests) animated. The young girl has the power to read and communicated with these souls just by touching them with her bare hands (that's why to protect herself from involuntary readings, she wears gloves), and the ability to travel through mirrors. Things changes, though, when she is promised in marriage to Thorn, from the powerful Dragon clan. Because of this, she will have to leave her family and move to her fiancée's ark: The Pole. Why did they chose her? Why can't she say who she really is, but must hide her true identity?

The second book instead is called "The Missing of Clairedelune" (Les Disparus de Clairdelune / Gli Scomparsi di Chiardiluna). Our heroin, Ophelia is being promoted to vice-storyteller by Farouk, the spirit of the Pole, which will put her into the public spotlight and everyone will know her special gift. She will have to read his Book that it's including all his memories in an unknown language that no one can understand. This will lead to the grudge of the other citizens that will see her as a threat. She discovers that the only person she may be able to trust is only Thorn. As one after another influential courtier disappears, Ophelia finds herself implicated in an investigation that will lead her to see beyond the illusions of the Pole to find the actual truth. 

The third book is called "The Memory of Babel" (La Mémoire de Babel / La Memoria di Babel). This time Ophelia finds herself on another ark, the magical city of Babel, guarding a secret that may provide a key to the past and future. 

After two years and seven months biding her time on Anima (I'm not going to spoil the ending of the previous book, just going to say that because of something that happened, she gets sent back to her birth ark), it's time to act on what she discovered in the Book of Faruk. She changed her identity using the name of Eulalia to live on Babel, a cosmopolitan ark where androids have taken over human's jobs. Under this ideal life, though, unrest chaos fed by memories of a purge and the inhabitant fear of being replaced. Will her talents as a reader be enough to enter into the Memorial of the town? 

The last book of the saga instead is called "The Storm of Echoes" (La Tempête des Échoes / Echi in Tempesta). Ophelia and Thorn discover that the truth they have been seeking has always been hidden behind the mirror. 

Finally the distrust between them has been overcome and now they love each other passionately. But they can't show their love, because of the fake identities they've created on Babel. Only like that they can continue their journeys to understand the indecipherable code of God and the truth behind the mysterious figure of the Other, whose responsible for the fall of the arks, plunging thousands of innocents into the void. 

Their journey leads them to the Observatory of the Deviations, where Ophelia will be a sectioned patient. There they will hope to discover the truth that will hopefully bring the world back into balance.

---

I need to say, I loved it. All the books are amazing and I felt deeply connected with the figure and description of Ophelia, which resembles me a lot. The love story with Thorn is perfect, because it's structured so good that at the beginning you despise him, just as Ophelia does, but you slowly start to appreciate him and love him at the end.

Mme Dabos clearly knew how to make it this perfect that you couldn't just put the book down anymore. Once you start reading it, you're completely hooked and you want to finish it, even though that makes you sad. 

To be honest yes, the only thing I didn't like was the ending, but I guess that has to do also with the fact that I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Ophelia.

So, I totally recommend it if you like fantasy stories. 

Ten Days in a Madhouse by Nellie Bly

Ten Days in a Madhouse

by Nellie Bly

Hi everyone :) Here I am with another review. This book has been recommended by the same friend that gave me Purple Hibiscus in the previous  review :)

---

The short novel I'll talk about today is Ten Days in a Madhouse by the American journalist Nellie Bly.

---

The novel was really easy to read because there weren't any hard words that could have been used in the old English of those times, or maybe I'm just to used to read classic book from those days :'D

It was published as a series of articles from the personal experience of the writer that played to be insane to show the people how the patients were really treated in those facilities and what they had to go through on a daily basis. 

She investigated the brutality on women in the Women Asylum of Blackwell's Island. 

---

I must say that so far it has been my favourite of this year, also thanks to the fact that I already knew her story that was drew in the graphic novel book Brazen (Culottées in French) by the French illustrator Pénélope Bagieu, which I already did my review about. (Go check it out if you'd like to know more ;) )

Some of the scenes portrayed were, of course, disturbing, because you never realise how much can people be cruel to others until it's not shown. 

The cruelty of the doctors and nurses on the patient, which most of them weren't even really insane, was just too much too handle. 

A particularly memorable scene were the baths that the patients received. The water was way too cold for them to stay healthy, and buckets of water were literally poured over their heads while the other patients were rubbing and washed the other in the tub. The bath water was almost never changed, with many patients bathing in the same dirty water. When the water was changed, rarely, the staff didn't even take care to wash off the bathtub, but just throwing the next patient right into the filthy tub. The most disturbing part was, for sure, the fact that they all shared towels and healthy patients were forced to dry themselves with the ones previously used by others with skin inflammations, boils, or open sores.

The ending part was what I liked the least, because it made me really annoyed by how the facility acted when Nellie finally got the court to investigate into it, but I'm not going to spoil you more, so if you're interested go check this little masterpiece out :)

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

Spoiler alert: If you've already watched the film with Whoopi Goldberg,

then there are no spoilers.

Hi, here I am with another review.

Today I'm going to talk about the novel The Color Purple written by the American author Alice Walker. I wanted to read this book because I loved the film and I've seen that a lot of people on Bookstagram were reading it also, so I got curious to see if it was different from the film or not.

The book is composed by letters written by Celie, the main protagonist, and by her sister, Nettie, from which she is divided. The book focuses on the life of African-American women during the 1930s, addressing their low position in the American social life.

Celie is a 14 years old girl at the beginning, she writes her story through letters addressed to God. Almost immediately she gets married to an older man that she calls Mr. -, because she doesn't even know her name. Her life changes when she is divided from her sister Nettie, and then meet a friend of Mr., Shug Avery, a female singer, with whom she becomes friend and lover, and thanks to whom she experience her sexuality. 

---

I mean, what else can I say except the fact that I loved it? It's really enjoyable, short and fast to read. It is exactly as the film, but the thing I enjoyed the most, is the fact that they actually showed Celie discovering that she's attracted to Shug and not to men, something that you can't clearly understand from the film. It's a really short book though, and I wished it was lasting a bit longer.

Brazen by Pénélope Bagieu

Brazen

by Pénélope Bagieu

Spoiler alert: No spoilers this time, it's just a really enjoyable reading,
full of characters that you probably never heard of before or
knew their stories but not their names.

Hello everyone, here there is another review.

Today I'm going to talk about the graphic novel Brazen (originally called in French Les Culottées), written by the French illustrator and comic designer Pénélope Bagieu. I've came across this book because a friend of mine brought me one of the tomes in French when she went back to Paris for holidays and since then I wanted to pay the full version of it, which you can find in different languages such as English, French, Spanish, Italian and so on.

The graphic novel goes across history and the whole globe to describe to us indomitable women, who fought for their rights and to give a better life to their selves and the other generations. These are the stories of women that fought against adversity by raising their voices to be heard and change the course of history.

With her drawings, Bagieu shows the lives of these female role models, some more famous as the Witch of Oz and some less known as Agnodice, the first female gynecologist. These stories are meant to inspire the next generations of brazen and couragous women.

---

I mean, what else can I say except the fact that I loved it? It's really enjoyable, because it's made as a comic, so easier to read, even though in some parts approaches some important and cruel topics. My favourite stories are the one about: Agnodice, the first gynecologist in Ancient Greece; Josephine Baker, who was mostly known as a French dancer but was also a French Resistance fighter and a matriarch; and Jesselyn Radack, a lawyer who fought for the rights of whistle-blowers.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita

by Vladimir Nabokov

Spoiler alert: The book is controversial, so not for an easy and
pleasant reading, since it talks about the topic of pedophilia.

 

Hi, here I am with a new review.

Today I'm going to do the review of Lolita, written by the Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. I've came across this book because my cousin suggested me to read it, even though it has been on my to read list for a long time.

The novel is famous because of its controversial subject. The protagonist, a middle-aged literature professor that goes under the nickname of Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with Dolores Haze, a 12 years old girl, with whom he becomes the tutor by being hosted by her mother in their house. He's an unreliable narrator.

Later he will become sexually involved with the girl after he becomes her stepfather by marrying Mrs. Haze. He will give Dolores a private nickname, "Lolita", that gives the title to the book. The name "Lolita" has been assimilated in our popular culture and used to imply that a young girl is sexually precocious. Dolores and him will then travel around the country when the mother accidentally dies. A lot of consequences will happen to both the characters.

Lolita quickly attained a classic status and it's considered to be a cult book. The novel was then adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrik in 1962, and then in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted in musicals, ballets and operas.

It has been considered as one of the greatest work of the 20th by many authors and listed as one of the best books by Time, Le Monde and many others.

---

I need to admit that I was really into reading this book at first, but as soon as I started it, I was really shocked by how he could go around, flirting with her, without any consequences. The more I read and the more I understood that it was going against everything I believed in, but also I was more attracted to it, because the plot was thickening and the situation was getting worse for Humbert, which made me feel better. 

The end of the book is both sad and happy, that's why I liked it, because you have a realistic ending.

This month's recommended books

Hey!! This month's recommended books are:

«Brazen by Pénélope Bagieu» 
  
Originally called Les Culottées and divided in two tomes, Brazen, translated in many languages, explores the theme of feminism and women who made history across the globe. A common characteristic that connects all of them is their indomitable spirit, the courage to change their lives for the best, by raising their voices, changing history, bringing peace to their nations... Brazen is a comic book shoring female role models some of them world-famous, and others little known. From the journalist Nellie Bly to the actress Margaret Hamilton (namesake of the astronaut), from Josephine Baker to the first female gynecologist Agnodice. This book is sure to inspire the next generation of rebel ladies.

✧༺♥༻∞　　∞༺♥༻✧

«The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood»

Set in a despotic and autocratic place, called the Republic of Gilead. Here, Offred, the main character, is a Handmaid who lives in the house of the Commander just as an "object" to procreate, since the Wives cannot give birth to the children of their husbands, the Commanders. She can leave the house once a day to walk to get food and lie on her back and pray to get pregnant, once this will happen, she will just be "thrown out" like an old pair of shoes, to go to the next Commander. It's a never ending circle where Offred (the name comes because she's a property of Fred, her actual Commander) remembers her past with her husband, Luke, and their daughter, who she hasn't seen since this horrifying republic started. In some parts of the book, that was first published in 1985, we can clearly see that some of the things that happen, didn't really change for women, there is not a progress for equality, where women are blame to be sterile when they can't get children, because "it can't be the men's fault", or that they need to have a children before 35, because if not, it would be wrong or weird. Even though it was written many years ago, it still actual, especially in some countries of the world. Atwood published a sequel last year called "The Testaments". 

✧༺♥༻∞　　∞༺♥༻✧

 

«Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed»

This book is an autobiography of a 22 years old woman, Cheryl, that when her mother died and her marriage failed, thought she lost everything she had. Four years after all these events she decides, since she has nothing else to lose, to go on a hike of more than a thousand miles of the PCT from Mojave Desert through California, Oregon to Washington State, without any experience and alone. This book tells her journey through pain, loss of shoes, nails and cold and hotness, but also some friendships along the way and good memories. It's an inspiring book that makes you understand that if you want to do something, even if it's the most impulsive thing you've ever done, it can make you stronger, heal you.

Hi!

Hey everyone.

This is my first post in here.

My name is Alexis and I openeded this blog with the purpose of doing reviews about the books I'm reading and suggesting you the one I loved the most.

I've been reading all my life and I'm not planning to stop. Reading is what keeps your mind active and it lets you "enter" in worlds that seem to be completely ours. That's what I really like about it, other than the fact that it's relaxing, but also because you can be someone else for a while. Leave all that boring life that is surrounding you.

I also have a fan account for books on Instagram, if you want to check it out the name is: thegalaxybooks and I have a Goodreads account too, my username is: Ale N
If you want to follow some of my stories on Wattpad, here's the link: alexisb1997
You can also check out my Pinterest account: AleN1121997

Thanks for your time, and until next time.

Have a nice day.