The Giver : Book and Movie

The Giver is a 1993 American  novel by Lois Lowry. It is set in a society which is at first presented as a utopian society and gradually appears more and more dystopian.

Jonas, a 12 years old boy, who lives in a "perfect" community where every thing is under control; no chaos, strife nor pain. The community is living by the notion of "Sameness" and eliminating the "threat" of being different. By the age of 12, every kid in the community is assigned for a particular job ( don't worry, they choose for you) however our little hero, Jonas, is selected to do an unusual job for the community which is 'The Receiver' of memories ( I know you never heard of it , an awkward work but don't forget that we are talking about a freaking Utopian society ). During the process of receiving the memories, Jonas learns the truth about his dystopian society, and you have to read the book to know what happened next!!

Imagine living in a black and white world (literally) where no love, no hate, no success, no failure, no singing , no dancing , no reading, no thinking, no creativity . Every thing is the same, When I started reading the book , I was shocked and I hated it. I thought the writer is making a kind of propaganda; encouraging the notion of Sameness, excluding individualism and emotions.She didn't even provide enough characterization to form emotional connection with the characters. Well, every thing was a mystery !!  Then , when Jonas started to get the memories and realized that "that's not fair" I felt relief and I liked the book at that moment . 

the book made me realize the importance of  being different, feeling pain and learning from the past. Different means receiving the world from your own perspective and dealing with it by making your own choices; you make the world colorful as you wish and do not accept the grey sameness. Pain is the force behind shaping people into human being with intense feelings; if you don't experience pain , you won't appreciate happiness.so we should not be protected from pain. Finally, you can't forget the past and you should learn from it and build on it.

“The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past.”

The Movie 

The movie has portrayed the story perfectly. I even think that the movie is much better than the book (I won't take it back); I felt the notion of coldness and colorless society better in the movie. I felt emotional connection with the character and I saw them develop their personalities and grow emotionally.

There was a lot of changes made in the film which they made it more plausible , for instance; they get their assignments at age 18 instead of age 12.
The movie creates a clear ending and it gives more purpose to a bigger group of community's members and it was awesome.

I highly recommend the book and the movie as well, you will love it.

you can watch the movie here and if you are interested in a PDF version of the book inbox Bookstore online 

Rue des tanneurs - نهج الدباغين

نهج الدباغين، هو أحد أنهج مدينة تونس، ويربط حاليا بين نهجي المنجي سليم الذي كان يسمى نهج المالطيين سابقا، ونهج رومة من جهة أخرى . وقد سمي بنهج الدباغين لأنه كان يحتضن صناعة دباغة الجلود، وبما أن هذه الصناعة كانت تعتبر من الصناعات الملوثة، فقد اختير موضعها خارج المدينة العتيقة. وبعد اندثار الدباغة بهذا النهج، تخصص ببيع الكتب القديمة، مهما كانت لغاتها 

ومواضيعها ومكان نشرها.

على بعد أمتار من الطريق المؤدية إلى نهج "الدباغين" بالعاصمة التونسية لا بد وأن يلفت انتباهك الكتب المنشورة على أرضية الرصيف، وأخرى على مناضد خاصة، حيث يمتزج سحر المطالعة المنتشرة هنا وهناك برائحة الكتب التي تغمر المكان.

هناك فئة معينة تقبل على شراء الكتب كالمثقفين، و يجد المولعون بالقراءة والمثقفون في هذه الفضاءات لبيع الكتب القديمة أنواعاً عديدة من المراجع النادرة والكتب المفقودة التي يصل عمر بعضها إلى الخمسين سنة وبأسعار مناسبة جداً.

والغريب أن بعض الباعة هناك لا يعرفون قيمة الكتاب أو المرجع لذلك يكون البيع اعتباطياً، ولا يعبر عن القيمة الحقيقية للكتاب، ويكفي أن يباع مرجعاً يتكلف آلاف الدينارات التونسية بالعشرات فقط منها.

و يمكن أن تجد نسخة موقعة شخصيا من قبل كاتبها

Khaoula Hammami

J’aime

The Seven Stages Of Love

The book talks about Oussama who is delivering a lecture about The Seven Stages Of Love through four stories. The names of heroes of these stories  are codified, so he refers to them as A,B,C, and D. Each character has an experience in love with a tragic end. And through their experiences and fails the reader learns the to-do and the to-not-do and most importantly the reader learns the seven stages of love.

 What I like about the book is first, that the reader can easily identify themselves with the stories; I've certainly lived and went through at least one phase from that stories and you will feel the same when you read it, you will find answers. Second, it is so emotional and touching; in some parts I was crying a river. finally, I loved , like really really really loved the end and I can't say anything because I don't want to spoil things for you.

I hate one thing in the book which is the dialogues are not written in Arabic but in Egyptian common language  and it made it hard for me to understand some words outside the context.

"Speak" now or forever shut your mouth

Speak is a YA/ realistic fiction/ contemporary book by Laurie Halse Anderson. 

Melinda Sordino busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops. Now her  friends don't talk to her, and people she doesn't even know hate her . The safest place to be is alone, inside her own head. But even that's not safe. Because there's something she's trying not to think about, something about the night of the party that, SOMETHING happened at that party, SOMETHING horrible, SOMETHING made her withdraw from life, family and school and I won't tell you what is it but you can guess from the following quote:

"Our frog lies on her back. Waiting for a prince to come and princessify her with a smooch? I stand over her with my knife. Ms. Keen's voice fades to a mosquito whine. My throat closes off. It's hard to breathe. I put out my hand to steady myself against the table. David pins her froggy hands to the dissection tray. He spreads her froggy legs and pins her froggy feet. I have to slice open her belly. She doesn't say a word. She is already dead. A scream starts in my gut - I can feel the cut, smell the dirt, leaves in my hair."

 Therefore, if she let it in, would blow her carefully constructed disguise to smithereens. And then she would have to speak the truth. "Speak" now or forever shut your mouth!!!

well, well the book is awesome; written in a very simple English , it's , in fact, like reading a personal diary of a teen girl (I love 'Tnasnis' it's fun !! kidding, but this time it wasn't); because the narration is in Melinda's head , the memory too is in her head which added the realistic notion to the story.

It's like a dark, sad and terrifying diary , you surf through unhappy and angry words and I hated it at first ; I was like, com'on get over yourself or who the hell cares !!! I didn't feel like,don't worry hon, I'll be your friend, even though I have a soft heart. I just felt lukewarm towards her I didn't like her and I didn't hate her, I didn't feel sorry for her. Maybe, she didn't want to be pitied.

However, I was glad when she found finally her voice, she was going through a phase of awakening, and she exposed "IT"( Ps: IT refers to a person , I know we are breaking a major rule in the English Grammar but you have to read the book to understand why) and the book ended perfectly; The books end as the following GIF :

I couldn't really talk about the book and how I really felt because it would be a major spoil;  One word and I would expose everything.

The answer for the why : "I am I am I am" , sitting under a bell jar

Sylvia Plath's shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanity

Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.

As soon as I started the book I loved it, I said finally a book talking about a successful, independent and talented young lady. I was flying through the pages to know more about Esther; her life in New York (com'on, it is the city that never sleeps) , her job at a glamorous magazine, her writings. I wanted to know it all about free clothes, parties and men. It is every girl dream to live in a big city, have AMAZING job and have fun, duh. I was expecting more, much, much more( people see good, expect good). However, our young lady turned to be a "spiteful" woman , a modern female version of the "underground man" (the protagonist from "Notes From the Underground" by Fyodor Dostovesky); she felt empty and "being burned alive all along (her) nerves". She felt like sitting under a bell jar. It was depressing and each time she talked about suicide I was like "WHY SYLVIA WHY !!!". Then I understood why.

The why!! 

The book is literally Plath's last couple of breath, she wrote her own autobiography then she committed a suicide :

"My heroine would be myself, only in disguise. She would be called Elaine. Elaine. I counted the letters on my fingers. There were six letters in Esther, too. It seemed a lucky thing."

The book is depressing but not sad, I did not even shed one tear while reading the suffering that Esther went through because she did not want sympathy , she was just telling us her story. The answer for the why.

Strangers By Dean Koontz

They are from different towns across the country, with different backgrounds. They have nothing in common but their dreams--full of a terror that turns night into hell and day into living nightmares. The strangers are drawn to the Tranquility Motel, deep in the heart of the desert, where they will discover a shocking truth.

Strangers is a combination of horror, psychological horror, science fiction, techno-thriller. the book is pretty long, 700 and so pages, with plain and simple English that makes you read the book in few days.
The book is a bloodless Horror with chilling elements and a touch of paranormal phenomena. It is scary and dark but doesn't come across the realm of macabre (def: an event or a story when it is strange and horrible usually because it involves death or injury) and that's why I love it; you won't feel disgusted or you are about to faint away. The vivid description and the stunning details of the inner state and the fear of the characters make you feel their dilemma and anxious mind.   I love the individual stories that show the struggle, the suffer and pain each character is living and through out the pages these shocking-various stories come together to make one horrifying story that not only makes the hell out of you scared but teaches the value of love,faith, family, friendship and survival. The novel is about obsession, the fear of the unknown, the search for the answer and this kind of horror  makes you think, eager to solve the mysteries more than scared. The end is very poignant  and beautiful and I really wanted to be part of that big event or discovery (which I can't write about   because it would be a huge spoiler) but I was little disappointed because it's not the end I have imagined it (my version is way better)




what I hate about the book is that it is too long for this kind of stories, as I said earlier it contains more than 700 pages (Ps: dear Koontz this is a novel not an epic, duh). Some chapters are just  re-writings of the previous chapters, so I skipped few lines, paragraphs  and some times pages (shh, let's keep it a secret). Concerning the characters, all of them are the perfect example of perfection. they are hard working, successful, kind, loving, caring... they have all good qualities, FLAWLESS!! even the bad guy turns to be a the modern Robin Hood (com'on). what I'm trying to say is that they are too perfect in away you can't associate yourself with them. they are too good to be true!!


Overall, even though you are not a fan of Sci-fiction or horror, you should read the book (you will discover why when you read it). I highly recommend to add it to your TBR list.

Ps: if you want to purchase the book inbox Bookstore Online

Love and war: Yusuf Ya Mariam

About the writer :
Yami Ahmed is a Palestinian writer , was born on 1989 in Gaza. He is only 24 and he has written an amazing book "Youssef ya Mariem" which is his first novel (I'm stalking him , kidding). there is nothing much to say about him except he is a student of Media (according to his Facebook page) and he has a Licence in Languages and Translation.

لا أكتب 

ليقال هذا شاعر،

أو هذا كاتب ..

بل كي تذكريني

كلما على المرآة

تأملتي عنقك ..

وتخيلتي سنوح قبلاتي

كما قرأتِ في كتاباتي !

Another Romeo and Juliette, another impossible love story

This time our Romeo and Juliette are Gazanian (from Gaza) and their typical love story is veiled by Politics; a struggle between an armed organization and a corrupted government, a struggle that kills innocents and separates lovers!!

Yusuf Ya Mariam is Yami Ahmad’s first novella, and he is only 24, he describes in his story a forgotten phase of the Palestinian’s life; the life between Love and War. A forbidden love between a rich girl Mariam and a poor boy Yusuf and their war against norms, traditions, rules, chaos, pain and most importantly against their pride and families. They struggled against a sour reality to consume their love.

I really love the book and I love the fact that the female character is an active one: a fighter and a decision maker. She loves, fights, marries, and dumps. I love Yusuf as well; he is the figure of a passionate lover who is ready to do it all to be with his beloved one. They remind me of Romeo and Juliette.

As much as I love the book, I hate some parts of it because when the writer was talking about historical monuments in Gaza, "souk el-Zawiya" and Gaza seaport, I noticed that he fell in the trap of reporting and I was bored or that time when he was talking about stomach butterflies, it was kind of reading a definition from Oxford.



I read the book during two hours with various breaks; either to catch a breath or to search and hear a song mentioned in the book. During the two hours, I was overwhelmed with emotions of happiness and sadness and I really enjoyed them. Since I have finished reading the book, I have been recommending it to all the people I know, because it’s worth reading.