Review on Fahrenheit 451

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is about a firefighter named Guy Montag, who lives in a futuristic society, where people burn books instead of reading them. Throughout the book I have enjoyed reading about the different things Montag must go through to gain more knowledge, and how it affects him. One of the themes explained in this novel is that knowledge is power. By knowing things in life, you can achieve the goals you set, and learn things that other people can't understand. Knowledge is feared in this futuristic society, because people are taught and told not to question government, or people with more 'power'. Nobody ever questions why the firefighters burn books until Clarisse motivates Montag to question Captain Beatty, the firefighter chief. One quote from this book is, "Once, long ago, Clarisse had walked here, where [Montag] was walking now" (138). This quote shows that Montag is taking the same path to question, and to ask others why something is some way, just like he first saw with Clarisse, at the beginning of the book.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this book. It was very well written with a lot of great imagery and detail. It also used many examples of satire all throughout the story to make and emphasize the theme. The word choice and diction was also good, with some elevated diction, but not too hard to understand as a reader. If I had to rate this book, I would give it a four out of five stars. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a good and interesting read, with lots of great detail. Overall, it was a great book and I liked reading it.

Here is a link to a review on Fahrenheit 451 from goodreads.com. From here it also receives about a 4 out of 5 stars.
Review

Fahrenheit 451

While reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury in school, I have noticed and become more aware of the different themes, purposes for writing, and satire used throughout the story. The book is about Guy Montag, who is a firefighter in the book. But instead of having the job of a normal firefighter that we know of, the book takes place in a futuristic setting and Montag burns houses hiding books in them (books are illegal in this society). Throughout the course of the story, Montag starts to question whether or not he should be burning books, and starts to realize that maybe the information and knowledge inside of books is powerful and shouldn't be destroyed.

One quote from the book is, "' Pity, Montag, pity. Don't haggle and nag them; you were so recently of them yourself. They are so confident that they will run on forever. But they won't run on. They don't know that this is all one huge big blazing meteor that makes a pretty fire in space, but that some day it'll have to hit. They see only the blaze, the pretty fire, as you saw it'" (99-100). Faber (a character who helps to preserve books) tries to help reassure Montag. He explains here that firemen and other people in the city don't understand that they are destroying knowledge, but they are just doing what they are told, without questioning the government or society. He says that one day though, they will have to find out what is going on, and figure out a way to keep from destroying books. This book seems really interesting and entertaining, and I'm excited to keep reading it to see how it ends!

Reflection

This trimester, I have read a total of 3 books. Even though I didn’t reach my goal that I set at the beginning of the trimester on Goodreads, I hope to continue reading more in my free time throughout the next trimester. I used Goodreads to gain suggestions for reading new books, and to see what types of books I might like from a certain genre. I also talked to family and friends who helped give me suggestions for reading new books that I might like. Reading other people’s blog posts also gave me information and summaries of books to see what I might want to read in the future. One thing I struggled with through this experience would be finding time to read from my books. I was very busy this trimester, and it was hard to set aside time just to read. I worked through this struggle by reading in my free time, and I hope to continue reading more throughout the next trimester. One strength I had with blogging would be to pull all my thoughts together into one blog post. This helped me to see more clearly the plot and story of each book. Also, it helped to see where there might be foreshadowing and connections throughout each book.

                   During this trimester, I have grown a lot as a reader and a writer by posting each week. An example of this would be from the beginning of the trimester where I wrote a blog post titled “Peace Child” (see post attached). In this post, I don’t go very in-depth in my explanation of the book Peace Child. I did talk about why I started reading the book though, because the missionary/author of the book visited my church a few years ago. In the post I said, “I chose to read this book because the author and missionary (Don Richardson) is friends with some people from my church.” Even though in this post I get the point across clearly, I could have tried to go more in-depth in my post. In this post I also said, “It takes place in Irian Jaya Indonesia (formerly called Netherlands New Guinea), which is just north of Australia.” To make this post more visual and detailed, I could have added a picture of a map to show where this place is located instead of just describing it.

                  A post that I made toward the end of this trimester would be one that I titled “Connections” (see post attached). This post is also written about the book Peace Child by Don Richardson. In this blog post, I made a connection from the book to myself. I wrote, “A connection that I can make from Peace Child to myself would be that I am going on a missions trip to the Dominican Republic in a few months.” Later on in the post I go on to explain that even though it’s not the exact same as moving to a foreign country with your family, our group will still need to have the same mindset as the missionaries who moved to this faraway country. Through this post and others, I made the book and blog more personal to myself, and improved my writing style throughout the blog posts. My reading also improved, by understanding more detailed and in-depth parts of the books I read. A quote from the book is, “’Lord God, have I been a fool? These men have never even learned to respect a policeman, let alone honor You-and here we are: man, wife and child, sixty-five river-miles from the nearest government post-defenseless except for Your Spirit surrounding us.’” This quote shows that the missionaries had to trust God that they would be okay when going out to the villages. They weren’t sure what they would do if the people there turned on them, or how to protect themselves. However, they trusted God, and were able to be safe. Even though the missions trip I will be going on isn’t as dangerous as this, we still need to trust God to keep us safe and to pray for the people we will be helping there. Overall, my writing and reading/analyzing strengths have grown throughout this trimester through my blog posts.

John Piper

To understand more the book I'm currently reading Let the Nations Be Glad, I wanted to do some research about the author. John Piper is a Christian author who has written many books on Biblical topics. He wrote this book to show the importance of missions, and that worship should be the center of it. He is currently an author/preacher and has been a pastor at a church in Minnesota for over 30 years. I can't wait to finish reading this book, and learn more from Let the Nations Be Glad!

True Face 2

I finished reading the book True Faced, and I thought it was very good! It had a lot of information that you could learn about, and read in-depth about. A lot of what the book talks about is how Christians wear "masks" to hide their sin and mistakes from others, and sometimes put on a show to make themselves look different than they really are. This book explains that you don't need to wear masks or try to be somebody else, and that the masks just pile up over time. A quote from the book is, "I also cannot give love from behind a mask, at least not love from the real me." This quote shows that wearing a mask will hide yourself from others, and you can't be yourself while wearing one. Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to read a good and challenging book!

True Face

A new book that I have started reading is called Truefaced. This book is written by a group of writers including Bill Thrall, Bruce McNicol, and John Lynch. This book is about examining your life as a Christian, and splits up believers into two different categories (or rooms). These are the Room of Good Intentions and the Room of Grace. The people in these rooms both have different mindsets and goals for what they should do in their lives. This book is very interesting, and has lots of good information to read about!

From reading Romeo and Juliet in class, I am enjoying so far reading the dialogue between characters, and the foreshadowing taking place in the play. I am so far concerned with Romeo's dream, and how he thought that going to the Capulet's party would end up in someone dying before they should. I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the events in the play will finish, and what will happen now that Romeo and Juliet know that they are from the opposite families.

Connection

A connection that I can make from Peace Child to myself would be that I am going on a missions trip to the Dominican Republic in a few months. Even though it's not the same as moving to a foreign country, with a completely new language, and with people who want to kill you, it's important to still have the same mindset as the missionaries to went to these tribes in New Guinea. Similar to Don Richardson (author), when our group goes on the missions trip we need to be ready to serve the people there, and trust God for what will happen. In the next section of Peace Child, Don Richardson sacrifices everything to go talk to one of the tribes and start to build a "house" for his family. Luckily, he trusts God and he is able to make some new friends who help him to build his "house" and prepare to start living among these tribes.