Book Review for Shelfari, March 12, 2009

Ark Angel by Anthony Horowitz
Dear Book Club,
I have finished reading Ark Angel, a 326 paged fictional adventure novel, by Anthony Horowitz, which I found to be a very interesting and fulfilling book to read. It is really just a well-written fictional novel that’s simply entertaining and thrilling to read, with a young main character to relate to.
A Quick summary of the book: Alex Rider is in a hospital, recovering from a bullet wound. He ends up being replaced in a hostage situation, in which terrorists meant to kidnap a billionaire’s son and hold a ransom in order to make him stop his operation in funding the world’s first space hotel. The story eventually comes down to a full blown action read in which Alex, a teen operative for a branch of the government, has to stop the terrorist and keep himself undercover with Paul, the billionaires son and the rest of the family in order to report to his company.
This book was a different read for me, because I usually enjoy reading complete fantasy novels, with magic and unicorns, and other books that make me think and question. But this book is shallow, not meaning it a bad thing, but I found it to be a quick little story that is very entertaining.
My favorite part of the story was when Alex Rider, after being discovered is being attacked by Nikolai’s henchmen and escapes on a kite and flies 2 miles to the closest island where he has backup and later ends up saving the space hotel from an Implanted bomb.
As for themes there wasn’t any cliché sort of themes that I noticed, such as, “love will overcome all!” although it’s possibly a the author wanted to include the actual environmental deterioration that’s happening in the world into his book, so what I found to be the most concrete message the author wanted to communicate, which is a theme, is that we need to do more to keep the environment cleaner and take care of it more than we are.
All-in-all, this book is a very well liked novel that keeps the reader hooked, It is quite descriptive most of the time and really makes the reader feel excited for what’s to come and questioning for what has happened. I read the entire thing within a few hours. I would definitely recommend this book because it’s a, “can’t put it down” book, and its an easy read. The story is full of plot twists which adds to its excitement even more. Overall, Nine out of Ten.

Amritesh Brady (8th grade)


Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Dear Book Club,
“Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury, is a book in which Guy Montag, a man in the future, journeys from the life of a fireman whose job is to burns illegal scriptures (a.k.a. any book) to a life of questioning why these books are so dangerous. In his futuristic world, he steals one of the books he was supposed to burn and becomes an outlaw as he reads more.
Censorship is an abundant theme throughout the story, especially as Montag is being watched at all times and can’t do anything out of the ordinary. From the very start, Bradbury brings in the idea that the future may not actually be perfect; creating a strong theme most importantly to the time it was published in the early 1950’s.
It is in the beginning of the book that I found my favorite section, where the author describes what the illegal books really are. He mentions classics and I realized that any knowledge of the past was outlawed. I recognized a few of the books he mentioned stealing like “Don Quixote”, “Alice in Wonderland” and Shakespeare and it put the novel into context for me. I enjoyed reading this section because it was where I realized what the imagined world was like and I was able to guess what the plot was about.
Bradbury’s writing style is not exactly to my liking because he only states events like a military reporter rather than describing the setting and characters. He develops the characters to a degree through the things that they do but that is not one the author’s strong points. He shows that he has a great imagination and he develops the plot very well. These qualities almost balance each other out but his plot makes him a good writer.
In summary, “Fahrenheit 451” is a great classic with a fantastic plot but not his best writing style. There are a couple of interesting themes and a few good turning points in the novel and this combined with the excellent plot make “Fahrenheit 451” a book I would recommend to all.

Cheers,
Cody Leeds (8th grade)