Tim Learn's Blog, page 14

Guest blogging

Check out this guest blog post–mine–on ALlie’s blog over @ alliesopinions. Thanks again, Allie, for all the support!

https://alliesopinions.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/guest-post-why-i-wrote-the-2nd-chewy-noh-by-author-tim-learn/

What I Learned…from Han Gong Ju

What I learned from ‘Han Gong Ju’

There are just some movies that stick in your head for while. Sometimes they’re good; sometimes they’re bad. This is definitely one of the good ones, but not one to be watched by just anyone.

The whole movie follows the titular character, Han Gong Ju—a high school student—around as she deals with her shattered life, picking up the pieces only to have it shattered, quite possibly, irrevocably again by the end. It is tragic and sad and sometimes jarring. The underlying dilemma that she is picking the pieces up from is rape—and not just any rape, but gang rape done by some forty boys over a long period of time.

Though this movie could easily stun just for that, there is much more. The director presents a fractured story, jumping from past to present, never delving too much into the rape but only enough so we understand and feel the full horror of it. But again, the rape isn’t the worst part.

The boys that raped her come from high position familes—sons of police officers and government officials. These boys are the successors to the town. When Han Gong Ju (strangely and literally meaning ‘One Princess) opens up about the rape, the parents of her attackers blame her and harass her until she is forced to leave.

Sound unrealistic? It’s not. The movie is based on a true story that happened in Miryeong—a small way stop of a town in the southern part of Korea. Worse of all, it only happened roughly twelve years ago. This is not something in the distant past. The true victim is still alive and barely an adult as she was in middle school at the time.

Above all, this movie highlights for me the division of rich and poor. These boys got off with no punishment. Although the country was outraged afterwards, the police in the town made sure to bungle everything up so completely that no proper case could be made against the boys. The following attack from the government against the police did little as well. The damage was already done.

Here in Korea, as it is in any country, the rich make the laws. Following my viewing of this movie, I was informed that rape, here, usually only comes with a maximum three year jail sentence, if that. This irked me until I remembered something else. Korea uses surveillance cameras to delve out speeding tickets to offenders. It does so by taking a picture of the front of the car and then mailing the fine with the said picture to the offender’s house. However, before the picture is sent out, it is made sure to have the passenger side seat chopped off, you know, just in case the wife picks up the mail that day only to find her husband speeding in the car with another woman. Males hold the power here, and the males are rich.

And it’s no different in America. We may have made great strides in gender equality, but our legal system is hardly fair. Drunk driving is barely punished in many states, while auto theft garners a long jail term. Which do you consider more dangerous—vehicular manslaughter or the stealing of tons of metal? And why is there this discrepancy? Because rich people tend to drive drunk. The underprivileged steal cars.

In the end, it seems, the rich always look out for their own, no matter where you may live. And for this reason, Han Gong Ju lingers in my mind, if not devastates it.

A New Review for Chewy 2

Allie over @ alliesopinions has gave a stunning review to the second Chewy book, and just after I’ve pretty much finished writing the fifth and final installment. Thanks to Allie, and please everyone check it out.

https://alliesopinions.wordpress.com/2016/04/18/book-review-chewy-noh-and-the-phantasm-of-winter-by-tim-learn/

Fireflies (Airborne #1)

Fireflies (Airborne#1)

(Middle Grade)

By Bree Wolf

  Rating

Synopsis

Gabriel was a boy lost in a world of fantasy in his computer games until his fighting / busy parents sent him to his grandparents’ place in the countryside. With his life turned upside down, Gabriel tries to adjust, only to realize there is adventure outside the digital world.

Prose

I’ve now caught onto the trend—that is the trend in most of the self-published works I review—and Fireflies is no different…sadly. With most books of this fashion, the author has a bit of talent with words and strings lines together decently, sometimes very well. This author, too, exemplifies this.

Even in broad daylight the house seemed haunted. Most of the paint was peeled off, giving the wood a run-down impression. Bushes and trees, not to mention the lawn, grew in wild abundance. They hadn’t seen shears or a lawn mower in years.

She gives us what any good writer should: details. She paints a picture…and then things go awry. The fault in a lot of indie works is not necessarily the moments of description, but dialog. Here, too, I find it difficult to believe any child, no matter what age, consistently speaks like these kids do.

“She told me she would die.”

“That’s not true. You understood her wrong.”

I don’t know how, but it feels scripted or what someone would expect another person to say without delving into the emotions of another…or at times, it was just straight up filler. Overall, it really brought me down and irked me most of the time.

Characters

Here I encountered another common problem with these books: too many characters. We get a good sense of Gabriel from the beginning—a shy introvert. Cool. Even though his parents aren’t one hundred percent fleshed out, seeing they send him off soon and disappear from the story, it’s forgiveable.

But upon making new friends in the little burg he ends up in, we are bombarded with names and new characters aplenty, among them are—if I remember—Eddie, Jordan, Liam, and Jack. We meet others, but initially this is the crew he hangs with. Beyond their names each character is given one identifying trait that they repeat incessantly in order to…characterize? I’m not sure.

If anything the author should have trimmed one or two characters out, especially after yet another character, Hannah, joins. By the end, they are like one large roaming gang of kids—which though it reminds me of my hometown youth, it doesn’t pan out well when the characters can’t develop well.

Structure

The story, per se, wasn’t bad. As far as middle grade goes, there is a lot of range within this group. That being said, this book feels like it belongs at the lower end of the age range. The story is not particularly difficult or well developed and can be easily read by younger readers. For older ones—as in fifth grade reading level or higher—they might find it a bit tedious and unbelievable, as I did.

Not only that, but I also found the movement of the plot and the unraveling of the riddles a bit ridiculous, but this was only further exaggerated by the tragic dialog. If their conversations were a bit more sparkling, quite possibly the transitions from one scene to another wouldn’t feel so poorly done. To be honest, I can’t say.

Overall

It may have sounded like a bad review, but in the end—a week after having read it—I don’t have hateful memories of the book as I’ve had with much worse reads. The idea and attempt was good. There were just too many skipped parts that lowered the book in my opinion as a whole. Like I said, too many characters made everyone seem flat and lifeless, while the watered-down, I-think-a-kid-would-talk-like-this dialog really dampened my overall impression. But…the author seems to be figuring out what needs to be done. Maybe in the future she’ll hit the right mix of every element. As for this one, I’d say it was a miss.

Check our her book here.

Check our her website here.

 

Another for Chewy 3

The third review from Justine over at bookwormaniac. He’s a trooper and dove through all three in one month. Thanks for the hard work, and check out his latest below.

 

[Review] Chewy Noh and the March of Death (Chewy Noh, #3) by Tim Learn

Quotes Challenge: Day 3

TAG: 3 Days, 3 Quotes Challenge – DAY 3

Thanks to Meredith @ Mezzalily’s Teen Book Reviews for the nomination. Check her out. Always a good read.

The Rules

1. Thank the person who nominated you.

2. Post a quote for three consecutive days.

3. Nominate three new bloggers each day.

And the Quote:

“Many cars passed us, which made me feel second rate, especially when the cars were heavy with families, and when they were bicycles.”

-‘Everything is Illuminated’ Jonathan Safran Foer

Nominations

Ramona @mybookshelflife

Charles @jangjaewong

Barnaby @falconboy

Quotes Challenge: Day 2

TAG: 3 Days, 3 Quotes Challenge – DAY 2

Thanks to Meredith @ Mezzalily’s Teen Book Reviews for the nomination. She’s hard-working blogger. Check her out.

The Rules

1. Thank the person who nominated you.

2. Post a quote for three consecutive days.

3. Nominate three new bloggers each day.

And the Quote:

“I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled ‘science fiction’ ever since (Player Piano was published), and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.”

-‘Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons’ Kurt Vonnegut

Nominations

Jenna @readingwithjenna

Helen @catchingcottonclouds

Matt @Mattphillips

Chewy Noh 2 Review

Another awesome one by Justine over at bookwormaniac. Check it out!

 

[Review] Chewy Noh and the Phantasm of Winter (Chewy Noh, #2) by Tim Learn

Quotes Challenge: Day One

TAG: 3 Days, 3 Quotes Challenge – DAY 1

Thanks to Meredith @ Mezzalily’s Teen Book Reviews for he nomination. Never done this thing before, but here goes.

The Rules

1. Thank the person who nominated you.

2. Post a quote for three consecutive days.

3. Nominate three new bloggers each day.

And the Quote:

…to be orignal was to admit that you could not do a thing the right way, so you could only do it your own way.

-‘The Recognitions’ William Gaddis

Nominations

Lilyn @scifiandscary

Kay @thekatsmews

Anette @anettereads

End of March Review

End of March Review

With a new semester and many projects, I am constantly busy. Nonetheless, I’ve managed my time to get some things done, though I would have hoped to have gotten more chapters and reviews fit in during that time. Here goes.

 

Books Read and/or Reviewed

Sadly, I have not gotten back into the full swing of things, hitting all those indie written books. A part of me deeply regrets this as I read over 30 last year. I hope to return to it soon. In the meantime, I have kept up with my reading, as shown below.

               

The Broom of the System is a must for all DFW fans, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing his chops before he wrote the indomitable IJ. The philosophy in it alone spun me on my head and kept me making connects and searching on the web for lost information. Sparkling book.

Remains of the Day was a reread with a student, but still wonderful to re-experience, especially since I last read it in university. The subtly felt even stronger this time seeing it through my student’s eyes, and the mistakes Stevens makes so earth-shattering in the end.

Lastly, Ness’ The Knife of Never Letting Go. As the theme seems to be showing more and more to me with these pop-books, I am not entirely on board with certain ‘darlings’ that others out there love. I found his writing stagnant, his plotting rushed and underdeveloped, and some of his dialogue unbelievably trite. I will not be reading the sequel, just as I won’t pick up another Ransom Riggs book.

 

Book Reviews Received

I’ve received two reviews for Chewy this month. One for the third book, seen here; and one for the first book, here. Though both didn’t award either book with as high of stars as I would’ve hope, these reviews are amazingly well done and show a certain invaluable perspective that only these reviewers could provide. I think both of them immensely, and suggest you check out their sites.

 

Progress on 2016 goals

Finish Chewy 5: My progress here is beyond good for me. I’ve finished the fourth part, which is monumentally on schedule. I desire to have the book in its entirety done before May for the first round of edits, so that by the end of May my Alpha readers can tackle it.
Read ‘The Recognitions’: Yes! I’ve finally started it! I have gotten about 70 pages in—which some may not say is such a remarkable thing to rave about—but this is hard book! Even The Correction’s author, Franzen, has called it one of the hardest books he’s ever tackle, so I’m not feeling so bad with my mediocre start.
Compiling my Editing book: I got one more of the last eight posts up this month. I hope next month will offer more and get me closer to crossing this goal off.

 

Next Month’s Agenda

With upcoming exams and a tentative weekend alone, I hope to push Chewy through to the end, along with move my progress in Recognitions up to the two hundred page mark. As I’m currently entrenched in Arundhati Roy’s wonderful ‘The God of Small Things’, I will hopefully be returning to my review list afterwards, as well as fitting in a little Pynchon. Lastly, my editing posts should find one or two more up in the upcoming weeks as well.

Thanks.