Vira, Ronak, Riya, and Kaleb, royal siblings, have different agendas, wishes, and secrets. Ashoka’s dying source of magic leads them to the Ivory Key, which can make each of their wishes come true. However, there is a perilous journey ahead of them and their strained relationship hinders them in their path. They band together to find the Ivory Key for their own agendas. They get closer together and decide how to use their newfound power.
We have all grown up in a country where democracy has continuously been advocated, fought for, and has even pandered peace, but sometimes we fail to see why that happens. Animal Farm takes you on a journey on how a totalitarian regime rises, progresses, and ultimately oppresses. This novel allowed me to view not only communism but democracy from a different lens that I never inherently comprehended prior to reading this book.
Throughout history, people have grown a perception of incapability or some sense of inferiority when it comes to previously colonized countries and their effort to resist. However, what most people, including the media, fail to see is the brutality, traps, and negligence within the imperial system. Chinua Achebe dives into how the conservative and diverse traditions of an Igbo society changed after colonization by the British. Here’s my favorite part of this book: the reader is able to have an insight not from the colonizers, but rather the colonized.
This was such a fun book! Although, not in a very fun situation. Trevor Noah grows up as a mixed child during the apartheid laws in South Africa, so he was quite literally born a crime. This book describes Noah’s childhood, lifestyle, iconic stories, and the challenges he faced with his background. Here’s the most important aspect of the book: it’s funny. It seems contradictory, but Trevor Noah, as an adult comedian today, used humor as a coping mechanism in his life.
One of the most groundbreaking discoveries in the past century was a most peculiar phenomenon known as HeLa cells. While other cultured cells shortly died in a traditional lab setting, HeLa cells continued to multiply continuously, earning them the title of the first immortal cells. This gave scientists around the world the ability to conduct a variety of experiments that would lead to life-changing discoveries such as the polio vaccine and the study of HPV/HIV. However, few are aware of the woman behind the cells: a black tobacco farmer from Virginia named Henrietta Lacks.
Night is such an amazingly vivid, compelling, and tragic story about the Holocaust. It’s a memoir (of a sort) about the author’s experience during the Holocaust. The author Elie Wiesel is the narrator throughout the book and explains his journey with his father as they go through the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust.
This classic novel is one that I have read before, but am reading it again! As you may know, a plane with many British boys on it gets shots down and crashes on a lone island in the ocean. The plane drifts away into the sea, leaving the boys stranded on an island. This book is about their experiences on that island and how those boys managed themselves without any adult supervision.
Through the Dark is a collection of stories that were mentioned (but not explained) in the Darkest Minds trilogy. I feel like I was a bit too critical going into this book as I don’t really like side-books to series, but this collection of stories was actually very good. The stories included in this collection are like actual stories from minor (but also kind of huge) gaps in the series.
The Serpent’s Shadow is the third and final entry in The Kane Chronicles and is written by Rick Riordan. In this final book, Apophis, the serpent of chaos, plans to throw the world into eternal darkness. Carter and Sadie Kane must stop him from doing so by relying on a dangerous ghost and ancient spells to save the world. I thought the first two books in this series were very good, but I have to say that this is the best one yet. All the characters in this book shine, from Carter and Sadie Kane to Ra.
The Throne of Fire is the second book in The Kane Chronicles and is written by Rick Riordan. In this book, Sadie and Carter Kane must rush quickly to prevent the deadly serpent Apophis from destroying the world. This is the sequel to The Red Pyramid, a book which I liked a lot because of how new it felt.
