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Nem todas as árvores morrem de pé by Luisa Sobral

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  The world looks big and vague, we know we have barriers between one another, the barriers can be language, distance and even an ocean. Barriers can be visual or not. To grow up isolated from what the actual meaning of freedom is, when it’s given, it can be so confusing that even a simple decision of interests can be conflicted. This book by Luisa Sobral made me think on how the perspective of one, can change so many times due to the new information that little by little construct a pyramid of knowledge, now the big question is which steps are true and which steps are disguised as truth. Innocence of a child is a beautiful thing. The world seems brighter and the ones that care for us seem like the most wonderful people we have ever met. We as children joke and wish for time to be faster so we can be seated at the same level as our supposed heroes but when we reach that line, it’s not quite what we were expecting. We wanted to have the tough conversations with our parents, to rev...

Leather and Lark by Brynne Weaver

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  What would we do for the ones we love? This can be love for family, friends who are basically our family and our loved ones who can become our entire worlds with each passing day. First time ever meeting characters who can both be so stubborn but so dedicated to their loved ones and willing to do anything for their safety. Both Lachlan and Lark know that the reality of the world is not pretty, and it isn’t fair. Both want to avoid and protect their family but for that to happen, sacrifices and compromises must be made. I do adore how quick our sweet aunt Ethel is to scheme and put in motion the whole plot of the book and how much that character affected me. Family for me is important and their opinions are something that I take to heart every time, just like Lark who although knows their viewpoints on Lachlan and his “part-time” occupation, puts their well being and care first. Lachlan is the same when it comes to protecting his brothers, his stubbornness in how to achieve that...

Son of a thousand men by Valter Hugo Mãe

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Life is made of three stages, birth, growth and death. And in these stages, there are a lot of smaller moments that then make an impact on the following stage, if you are brought into this world in a certain way, your growth might be different and maybe even your death will be unusual. In this book, many characters are brought up in different ways, they growth is not like nay other, no matter how similar. However, the connections one makes in these stages can affect how one perceives the ending. From an old man who held no sons or daughters of his own to a father figure and then to something more. The main character is one simple man who never wished for much but for simple love and caring people that surrounded him. During his growth it was supposed to come but it didn’t, now in the present he is the character that unites all the odd ones out. Camilo is a lonely boy still to young to understand the future ahead and he needs guidance for what might come. He still remembers parts of...

Beastly by Alex Flinn

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  We all know the tale, arrogant boy meets innocent girl, and she changes him in more ways than one, and they live happily ever after. Tale as old as time, and if that phrase didn’t give you the tip the title will certainly help. “Beastly” is a book with a story told many times and yet is something us readers can’t get enough of, a beauty and the beast retelling, with a modern twist. This was a soft read and unfortunately, I must admit my guilt, I saw the movie before I read the book, but in my defense I did not of its existence until I saw it in the shop, and I simply had to read the actual story. It was unfortunate that I saw the movie before because then that did give me the characters a visual and I did struggle to imagine the original look instead of the movie look. Some of the differences were easy to deal with and change, for example the chat room or how Kendra looks and acts, but the hardest one was the change of the beast. It starts off with the life of Kyle and how hi...

Death at intervals by José Saramago

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  Death is complex. If death was a person, no other could reach its level of insight. Death is unable to wait, to stop or to rush time, but we humans blame death for doing it so. In this book I saw death with different eyes. For all the times people and I have said death is an evil being, I now change my answer to Death is complex, it can’t only take us this far. This is yet another book I read in Portuguese and although the form of the text did trip me up in the beginning as the narrative kept showing me all these new events my eyes were now stuck to the pages. The one-page long paragraphs may seem intimidating but when you read them it’s like looking at a fish going down a river, simple and quick. The book starts with the big news of Death no longer working. People would not die, if they were by death’s door they would still not die. The ill could improve but the most crucial cases and the elderly were hanging on because Death was on strike. She didn’t want money, and she did...

Froth on the Daydream by Boris Vian

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  Metaphors and perspective is something that is taught through life lessons and sometimes by people close to us. This book teaches these lessons like second nature, students wouldn’t even realize the lesson has started even if the bell rang with this book. The way the book sails through the narrative and makes the reader learn how characters are and how they can even look alike people close to us and create perspective in daily metaphors is astonishing. I read this book in Portuguese and the title is “Espuma dos Dias”. When I began reading it felt like another world like experience for, I couldn’t quite locate where he was or how he looked like however as the interactions appear I started to develop a picture not on the descriptions but on his way of being. Like when someone tells a story, and we can’t stop ourselves but to rethink of a similar event that occurred to us but with different people, places and times. This book was like eavesdropping on someone’s autobiography but b...

Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf

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It was a small but interesting read. It was my first book from Virginia Woolf and I have to say it was inspiring. It is curious to see how storytelling is such an easy thing to do but the act of writing in itself turns something so beautiful into an objectifying topic. The author does an amazing job describing how the different writers behave not only taking their sex into account but the time period and the probability of their status quo in the society. She illustrates possible lives of women who wrote their novels and helps us, the reader, visualize their hardships. I remember from when I was in English Literature A level we discussed how the time period really affected the writers but I think this book opened my eyes to a new degree. I remember studying Margaret Atwood and F.Scott Fitzgerald but these were women from the beginning. They are women who were not allowed to even have a space for themselves to write like their husbands or male family members had in their offices or priv...