Praise Vs. Criticism

One of the greatest kinds of characters in a story is the anti-hero. It helps that the character is not characterized as a hero or villain or as good or bad. The best area to find interesting characters is the gray area between good and bad. The main character in Hate List is Valerie and I still have yet to decide if she should be called a villain or a hero.
Without her actions of creating the hate list the people that were killed and injured might still be alive. Specific people she put on the list were hunted down by Nick Levil on the day of the shootings. Although I still wonder what part Jeremy played in the shootings. The same attack at the school could have happened, excluding the targets that Valerie had picked. Nick seemed to be racing towards the same destiny of shooting, killing, and eventual suicide. There’s a chance that with Jeremy’s help this same outcome could have happened. It might have been even worse if Valerie hadn’t been there.
Valerie did end up saving Jessica and possibly many other students and teachers in the process. This has kept me questioning whether I see her as misunderstood or someone that got away with a terrible crime.
Overall I think she deserves praise for saving a life and stopping the shootings. She also deserves to be criticized for making the list, even if she didn’t know what it would end up being used for. She can’t go back and stop the terrible things that happened at the school, yet she has learned from her mistakes and can only try her hardest to move forward.

Hate List So Far

When getting to choose the book to read I really wanted to read Hate List. I thought it would be interesting since the subject material had been close to the real life situations that had happened in the past decade. I enjoy the way the story was told with chapters jumping back and forth in time. Some of the best stories have been told without conforming to chronological order such as Star Wars and Lost. These and others along with Hate List are given a sense of mystery as to when something is happening in relation to the other parts of the story. It can be somewhat confusing starting a new chapter and jumping back or forward 5 or 6 months, but it is also very rewarding.
The characters all seem to be very interesting, all with their own strong back stories. I am very interested in finding out more about Valerie’s parents and their issues. I mostly want to find out more about Jeremy and what his motives and impact have been through the story.
Even though the book is not a diary it still seems as if I’ve stumbled upon Valerie’s diary. She talks to the reader as if they’re someone she can confide any information with. I think it’s a great writing tool to make the reader feel more connected with characters. The characters also seem to be real people each with their own flaws. No one in the story is perfect. Characters have troubled marriages, friendships, relationships, family problems, trust issues, and other interesting situations.

So far the book has lived up to my expectations for good characters, an interesting plot and a unique writing style. I hope it will continue to impress in the coming pages.

This Monster Lives

A book I recently read was Metallica: This Monster Lives. The book is by Joe Berlinger with Greg Milner. It shows the human side of the band and the daily troubles that they must face. The book is the companion story to the movie Some Kind of Monster that chronicled the bands near breakup for three years. It gives the story of the filmmakers instead of the band, giving a different perspective. The title of the book and movie refer to a monster. A monster can be thought of as a powerful force destroying all in its path. In that way the band had become a monster in that they were unstoppable. Every album they released in the past decade had won awards and been a number one record. The monster also had become a burden for the members and while it brought them together, it also nearly tore them apart. One band member left the band and another ended up in rehab for many months. The fear of failure and the many temptations in a band almost brought the band to destruction yet they pulled together to finish the album, movie, and book. In this way they band, producer, filmmakers, and author came together like one monster to complete the process. The monster not only lives but has become stronger than ever and more of an unstoppable force. It is significant that the title of the book combined with the title of the movie and one of the songs off that album shows the feelings of the band at this important time in their lives.

Mustaine

The last book I read was the book Mustaine.  Reading the book about one of my favorite musicians has been a very eye opening experience.  Even after finishing the book and I keep going back and reading particular chapters.  Many issues are talked about in the book.  Family issues, drug use, betrayal, love, and it really is a true story of someone’s continually picking themselves up after terrible things had happened.  The author talks to the reader as if he is just casually talking to a friend at lunch.  He doesn’t try to be something he’s not and doesn’t talk down to anyone.  For more than half of the book the author is addicted to some kind of drug and it really brought up some emotions.  It made me think of some of my friends and family members that have tried so hard to break free of addiction.  I admire the author for allowing the reader to enter the world and see how crazy and bad things got over the years.  It also makes for some uncomfortable parts of the book and I was surprised as I read them. 

I sometimes have trouble reading, especially if it is an assigned reading.  I hear the words in my mind and then they are immediately lost without any understanding of what they mean.  Even in this book I found myself having to go back into a paragraph to find out what I had just skipped over.  It can be a very exhausting problem and I try mostly to visualize what I am reading about.  Of all the books I’ve read in the past couple years they have all been about heavy metal.  Recently I’ve found two autobiographies and before that it was biographies about bands where I knew most of the information already from the internet.  I enjoy reading the books that I pick out, yet it frustrates me that reading about a subject that I’m not that excited about is so difficult.