• Fri. Nov 15th, 2024

The Official Student Paper of Riverside Poly High School

Book Reviews

Dec 12, 2022

Written by: Delaney Norris, Staff Writer

RECOMMENDATION:An unqualified teen girl rambles about books she has read as of late (and not very well).

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

This may be cheating because technically I read this book for class, but I promise that I have actually had this book since before I knew we’d be studying it for a class so I was going to read it anyway. The reader of this article probably doesn’t care why I read this book, but I felt like I had to get that off my chest. Anyways, cheers to my girl Mary Shelley for writing this book at 19 years old!! That is insane-this book is so revolutionary and I love to gush about it. Imagine writing this book for a competition with friends and literally redefining gothic literature and the genre of science fiction as a whole?! Wow wow wow. Truly outdid herself. The book follows ambitious and gifted Victor Frankenstein, a young man who creates life in the form of a supernatural being, referred to as creature throughout the book. Despite being the creatures creator – or “mother” – upon the creature gaining consciousness, Victor abandons it because of its terrifying appearance. The reader follows creature as he attempts to adapt to a world against him-and what happens when creature finally takes his revenge. The book leads one to dwell upon complex topics such as morality, feminism, and logic. I loved dissecting this book and the symbolism that laid in the pages. This review sucks, but I can assure you that the novel does not.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto

Kitchen is a random book I read online over the past week, and I wasn’t really expecting it to be crazy of a story. While this book is charming, I wondered what drew me to this book in the first place. It is a Japanese-translated novel and is short but sweet. It follows the main character Mikage as she is taken in by a mother and son after her grandmother passes away. I liked this part of the story and enjoyed observing Mikage as she begins to piece her life together after the tragedy she has faced. What confused me about this book is the last third of it. The story abruptly changes to the POV of a young girl whose name I can’t even remember. It was unclear to me whether this girl was Mikage or not, as she is called by a different name and seems to be younger than Mikage. Whether or not it is a flashback scene or a new girl is confusing, but still enjoyable and flows with the book, as the story shares the same themes of grief and loss as the previous story. Even though the story completely changes two-thirds of the way through and left me confused, I would still recommend this book. 

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