Book Review: Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden

My rating: 4.25/5

From Amazon: "North Korea’s political prison camps have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. No one born and raised in these camps is known to have escaped. No one, that is, except Shin Dong-hyuk.

"In Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden unlocks the secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state through the story of Shin’s shocking imprisonment and his astounding getaway. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence—he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his mother and brother.

"The late “Dear Leader” Kim Jong Il was recognized throughout the world, but his country remains sealed as his third son and chosen heir, Kim Jong Eun, consolidates power. Few foreigners are allowed in, and few North Koreans are able to leave. North Korea is hungry, bankrupt, and armed with nuclear weapons. It is also a human rights catastrophe. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people work as slaves in its political prison camps. These camps are clearly visible in satellite photographs, yet North Korea’s government denies they exist."

This book was powerful, angering, and eye-opening. I was not previously aware of North Korea's prisoner camps, and especially not that they've been around for 50+ years. I also didn't understand just how impoverished North Korea really is, especially as a whole (e.g., rice is a luxury even for the rich, and no one has reliable electricity), or how many people have defected from the country over the years.

I was amazed at the differences (which made a lot of sense, but to which I'd never given any thought) between people raised in the outside world and then imprisoned, and people born and raised inside prison camps. If that's all you've known and all you've learned to adapt to, it's incredible the way captors can shape you. I can't even fully comprehend it. 

I would have liked to have read more about how Shin feels, how he's adapted more recently from being an emotional and psychological prisoner with post-traumatic stress disorder to being able to speak to large crowds about his experiences; but at the same time, I almost felt guilty and helpless reading about his experiences without really knowing what to do to help. Along those lines, I wish there had been more information at the end of the book about how to help the organizations that aid North Korea refugees.

This book is straight-forward and easy to read. I would recommend it to anyone probably high school and older. The events depicted need to be better publicized. 

Movie Review: Life of Pi

My rating: 5/5

From Amazon: "After a cataclysmic shipwreck, an Indian boy named Pi finds himself stranded on a lifeboat with a ferocious Bengal tiger. Together, they face nature's majestic grandeur and fury on an epic journey of discovery."

This movie was every bit as beautiful,  visually and in narrative, as the previews made it out to be. Even beyond that.  This is now, without a doubt, one of my favorite movies.

I have not read the book, and in all honesty I may not now that I've seen the movie and know how it ends.  However, it must be an amazing story to read, judging by how beautiful and detailed the movie is.  It was a much deeper and much more serious story than I expected based on seeing the trailers, and the most fanciful story on a generally religious subject I've ever seen. It's culturally, philosophically, and religiously interesting, and I really want to see it again.

Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

My rating: 3.5/5

From Amazon: "In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

"During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are—and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her."

*SPOILER WARNING*

I'm writing this review several weeks after finishing the book, so I'm struggling a little to remember the details.  I liked the book, I never got bored with it (it's very action-y), I generally liked the protagonist (Tris), and I believed the post-apocalyptic Chicagoland world enough to suspend disbelief. It got dark in spots, and I appreciated it for that, as well as for showing that a teenage couple in love can actively decide to wait to have sex.  I just wish the characters had been a tad more realistic, and that the ending hadn't been quite so quick. I imagine the sequels to this book basically continue the ending, but I would rather there have been more time given to this book's ending on its own.  Without giving away too much, I had a little beef with Tris' mother about giving her life for no good reason towards the end too; it didn't jive with everything else that had happened.  It also wasn't clear why certain characters needed to die plot-wise... other than the author maybe feeling she had too many characters to deal with.  Which stinks.  Tris also gets irritating sometimes in that she really never acts selfless, the binding characteristic of the faction in which she grew up, which was disjunctive.

Long story short: It's very exciting (sometimes violent) and not a half-bad book, but don't expect it to make you think very hard.

Book Review: Jim Henson's Tale of Sand

My rating: 4/5

From Amazon: "Join us as we explore this missing piece of Jim Henson's career in a celebration of his creative process. Discovered in the Archives of the The Jim Henson Company, A Tale of Sand is an original graphic novel adaptation of an unproduced, feature-length screenplay written by Jim Henson and his frequent writing partner, Jerry Juhl. A Tale of Sand follows scruffy everyman, Mac, who wakes up in an unfamiliar town, and is chased across the desert of the American Southwest by all manners of man and beast of unimaginable proportions. Produced with the complete blessing of Lisa Henson, A Tale of Sand will allow Henson fans to recognize some of the inspirations and set pieces that appeared in later Henson Company productions."

I'm not a big enough Jim Henson fan to have recognized set pieces, and I'm not a huge fan of graphic novels, but I really enjoyed the style of this book. The art work is fantastic (but: warning for the younger/sensitive crowd, there is a little nudity). It's well-drawn, and colorful, but it's also unique in the way it incorporates the (apparently) actual screenplay pages into some of the backgrounds, like a little reminder every once in a while what the whole thing is based on. The story is imaginative and surreal, but I can see why it wasn't ever made into a movie.  It seems more like something that would make a great short story, not a full-length film.  As serious as the topic of the story could be taken, it did make me laugh out loud a couple of times.

It was not what I expected from a Jim Henson story, and I appreciated it even more for that.  If you're a fan of Jim Henson, you really should read this book.

Book Review: Almost a Psychopath by Ronald Schouten and James Silver

My rating: 4/5

From Amazon: "Do you know someone who is too manipulative and full of himself? Does someone you know charm the masses yet lack the ability to deeply connect with those around her?

"Grandiosity and exaggerated self-worth. Pathological lying. Manipulation. Lack of remorse. Shallowness. Exploitation for financial gain. These are the qualities of Almost Psychopaths. They are not the deranged criminals or serial killers that might be coined 'psychopaths' in the movies or on TV. They are spouses, coworkers, bosses, neighbors, and people in the news who exhibit many of the same behaviors as a full-blown psychopath, but with less intensity and consistency—and with a higher degree of awareness of the impact they have on others. They possess charm, glibness, and a lack of empathy that allow them to live their lives somewhere between the boundaries of commonplace 'not-so-bad' behavior and psychopathy.

"In Almost a Psychopath, Ronald Schouten, MD, JD, Harvard Medical School, and James Silver, JD, draw on scientific research and their own experiences to help you identify if you are an Almost Psychopath and, if so, to guide you to the interventions and resources you need to change your behavior, creating a better life for yourself or those around you. If you think you have encountered an Almost Psychopath, they offer practical tools to help you recognize the behavior, attitudes, and characteristics of the Almost Psychopath; make sense of interactions you’ve had with Almost Psychopaths; devise strategies for dealing with them in the present; and make informed decisions about your next steps."

This book wasn't quite as helpful as I'd hoped it would be in learning to deal with "almost psychopaths," but it is helpful just to know that you're not crazy when you think there's something off about someone with these qualities. It does have suggestions for how to handle certain situations, but unfortunately the ultimate answer seems to be that there isn't much that can be done, short of getting away from the person or people if you can.  The book is easy to read though, and does discuss other psychological conditions that display similar characteristics, which are helpful. Also helpful are the case studies, which sometimes show examples of how a situation with an "almost psychopath" could actually be worse than what you may currently be experiencing, which can be a sort of silver lining.

I think this book would be very helpful for anyone dealing with someone they think might be an "almost psychopath," especially if that person is a significant other or a coworker/boss. There are many more suggestions dealing with these situations (which seem more destructive and even dangerous) than with others.

Book Review: How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You by Matthew Inman

My rating: 4.5/5

If you're familiar with The Oatmeal (aka Matthew Inman), then you're familiar with this book's style and probably already own or wish you owned this book. Some comics are repeats from his site, but most are new, and all have to do with cats. Cat thoughts, cat plots, cats as office workers, etc.  I actually don't care much for the office worker Bobcats, and there are quite a few pages devoted to them, but I still lol'd at almost this entire book.  It also includes a poster at the end, and I have no idea how you could possibly go wrong getting a book of hilarious cat comics and a poster for under $10.

(Warning though: some bad language, so not for the kids. It's not overdone though and always used for humor's sake. But still, if your kids can read, you might want to hold off on showing them the funny pictures.)

Book Review: World War Z by Max Brooks

My rating: 3.75/5

From Amazon: "The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors from those apocalyptic years, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years."

I haven't read Zombie Survival Guide yet, so, although the Guide is mentioned several times in this book, I can't compare the two.  I can say that this book is very detailed and well thought out, to the point that you almost believe it was really written from eye-witness accounts.  Though it's intended to be transcriptions of oral history interviews, the majority of it reads like it was always intended to be a movie script, or at least more like prose than like real people speaking.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it did keep my disbelief suspended only about a few inches above the pages.  (That being said though, it doesn't look like the movie based on this book is going to follow the book very closely; those movie zombies move dang fast, and Brad Pitt looks like he's in the thick of the action, not an interviewer/author. *shrug*)

A lot of the characters seemed really similar too. This may have been intentional, with everyone having gone through similarly terrible things during the war, but I kind of doubt it.  I can't say that the book was boring for this reason though; the stories and the detail made up for it and kept me interested. I'll probably go back and read the Guide soon.