Divergent

                               Divergent
          
            The book that I am currently reading is "Divergent", I just recently started to read this book because one of my friends recommended this book to me because it was action-packed while being intriguing at the same time. Those two components combine my two favorite genres of suspenseful books and mystery/adventure books. So I thought to myself, "Why not start a new book?"

            So far in this book, I have read about how the world has become infected in the future. The people have been forced to go in isolation in the city of Chicago. Right away, they have decided to uphold a new form of government which are factions. Factions are in charge of different parts of the government, for example, Abnegation (Tris' parent's faction) is in charge of making the laws, while Dauntless is in charge of enforcing these laws and protecting the city of Chicago.

          The best thing about this book is that Divergent combines my absolute favorite genres, as I've mentioned before, they are Mystery and Suspense. Mystery is present in this book because in the book, something is happening behind the factions which is mysterious because the book gives glimpses throughout the story of people plotting to take over the city of Chicago and make the factions obey them. The book has suspense in it because the book has a lot of action and suspense and action are directly related. Suspense is most likely present when there is action and vice-versa. I really enjoyed reading this book.



       
          

              

The House of Hades

                                                  The House of Hades

         Today, I did my blog on the House of Hades. The House of Hades is the 4th book in the heroes of Olympus series. I also had a previous blog post on the 3rd book of the series, "The Mark Of Athena". In the book, I am currently on page 105 and it's very action packed. I am craving to go back to the book and bury my head into the book.


        So far at the beginning of the book, it continues from where the previous book, "The Mark of Athena" had ended. The Mark of Athena ended off in a bang because Percy and Annabeth drop into Tartarus and the only thing they say is, "Meet You On The Other SIDE!" (Page 15). This tells me that they are determined to make it through the pits of Tartarus where no human has walked across and survived. This is very suspensful and I had been waiting for  long time to get a hold of this book because of the plot twist that had occured at the end of The Mark of Athena.

       The setting of this book varies, it gives a Point of View in both the overworld and Tartarus. Tartarus is where devils and titans go after they die, it is a horrible and very dangerous place for demigods or even gods to go to. Even the lord of the underworld, Hades, is terrified to go into Tartarus. The overworld setting is aboard Argo II, also they are journeying to the House of Hades, or the location of the Doors of Death, their way of rescuing Percy and Annabeth and stopping giants and other monsters from coming from Tartarus. This is a picture of the cover of "The House of Hades":




            This picture depicts Percy walking through Tartarus with Annabeth and they're both badly injured. This picture also shows how difficult it must be to go through Tartarus even though they're badly injured and the people who go through are perfectly healed never return Tartarus.

            In the near future of my reading of this book, I predict that this book will lead to how Percy and Annabeth will eventually escape due to the demigods aboard the Argo 2 will have to beg Hades to help the demigods in Tartarus out and Hades ultimately agrees in exchange for a favor which Frank and Leo have to do and I think that there will be a plot twist that Frank works for Gaea and attempts to kill Leo but instead only ends up badly injuring him and meanwhile, Hades tells Percy and Annabeth to make their way to the House of Hades in Tartarus and they eventually do with great difficulty and overall, escapes Tartarus and tries to hunt down Frank to get information on Gaea.

The Lone Survivor

The Lone Survivor

       The Lone Survivor is a book about a Navy SEAL named Marcus Luttrell who goes into Afghanistan after 9/11 with his best friend Mikey. The book takes place when Marcus is reminiscing on the events that took place in Afghanistan like the death of his best friend and their position being compromised. They were forced to go into isolation for 2 months and they were living alone in Afghanistan until they were attacked by the Taliban. Marcus barely escaped and lived to tell this story hence the title of the story, "The Lone Survivor". This is a picture of Marcus Luttrell taken at Mikey's funeral in 2003.

       

       My realization after reading this book was that America's greatest strength and their greatest weakness is the same idea. It is called nationalism. Nationalism is a feeling that struck many Americans during the American Revolution, after 9/11 etc. This feeling is an idea that America is the greatest country and that we as Americans should fight for this great country and protect it. After 9/11, The United States sent many troops into Afghanistan to take down Al-Qaeda so that they can get revenge on the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center was a symbol of their economy, after they crashed the plane into the WTC, the Americans were very angry at Al- Qaeda and they themselves wanted to tear apart the organization. 

      An article that supports my realization is that which is written by Mariana Ortega and Linda Martin Alcoff. 

Link to Article:

https://www.sunypress.edu/pdf/61907.pdf

     This article states that after 9/11, Nationalism was in the air. The economy was extremely inflated because the building that played a major role in our economy was now on the ground. Due to this, Americans bonded their beliefs due to their hatred towards the terrorist organization, all races (blacks, whites etc). combined their beliefs and ideologies. The article states that there are negatives towards an increase in nationalism however, they can increase military violence and the civilians treated all Middle-Eastern people differently. They were racist towards them, and they wanted them gone form the US soil. But overall, the increase in nationalism helped bring together a unified country and got the people of America through hardships such as 9/11.

The Mark of Athena

The Mark Of Athena

I have continued to read the amazing and suspenseful book known as The Mark Of Athena. So far the book has been mind blowing, it had started off at a low point, kind of boring to read, but now, the book has reached another level of suspense. I left off at when Annabeth had just arrived at Camp Jupiter but there has been trouble brewing in the midst of the camp. Something took over Leo's body and made him fire at the Camp, as a result, Percy and 6 other demigods were forced to flee with angry Romans on their tail.


       I think the book so far had some good points and some bad points, as I have said earlier, the book started off being really boring and I tried to read the book but I had to force myself to do it, I didn't want to read the book at my own will. The best thing about my book is that it teaches me about Greek and Roman mythology in a fictitious way, without having to read  a non-fiction book. It also helps me learn gods to apply to school knowledge in the mythology unit. The book also adds a twist and excitement with cliffhangers at the end of every chapter, to make it even better, the book adds different point of views every chapter.


       The most important line from all of the chapters I have read so far is "Seven half-bloods must answer to the call. To storm or fire the world must fall... An oath to keep with a final breath... And foes bear arms at the Doors of Death."(Riordan 24). This is the most important line the book so far because it states the prophecy of what is supposed to happen throughout this book/series, it keeps readers at a cliffhanger and makes them want to understand the prophecy and read more. You learn about the prophecy and what it means towards the end, so if you are reading this book, you want to stick to the end of it. Below is a picture of the cover, it is very important because you can see that two people are fighting, and if you have read recent books in the series, you know that those people are Jason and Percy, Roman and Greek demigod leaders.

The Mark of Athena

The Mark of Athena

         

          I have just started reading the 3rd book in the Heroes of Olympus series, The Mark Of Athena.  This series is written by Rick Riordan, who is famous for writing the prequel series which was a bestseller and recommended series by the New York Times.

          I chose this book because I really liked the prequel series and I wanted to read more and it was also helping a lot with my education because it teaches you about Greek and Roman mythology. I also really liked how the author made sure that he described every detail very thoroughly so that the readers can imagine the story while they are reading it. The series is about how Annabeth and Percy get reunited after their seperation when Jason and his friends change spots with Percy, Percy gets put in Camp Jupiter and has to face challenged and becomes praetor (captain), Jason and his friends also go on a quest and get rewarded with a ship that Leo has built to travel back to Camp Jupiter, the beginning of the book is about how Annabeth meets Percy and it introduced Reyna to Annabeth and she realizes that Annabeth is Percy's girlfriend and gets extremely angry at her and stomps off into the distance.

          An example of this description is when Camp-Half-Blood is approaching Camp Jupiter, "About half a mile to the west, where the horns were blowing, a Roman fort stood on the hill. It looked just like the illustrations Annabeth had seen in the military history books- with a defensive trench lined in spikes, high walls and watch-towers armed with scorpion ballistae." (Riordan 8). This is an example of a quote that uses imagery to describe the setting of the Roman camp that they are approaching. This event takes place during the morning. I predict that later in the book, maybe there will be a quarrel between the two camps and they will be on the verge of war, until they realize that the gods are fighting also. I think after that event, they might have a peace treaty to try to stop fighting until the issue with the gods has been resolved.