Kyle’s Comments (group member since Jan 03, 2015)

Kyle’s comments from the Red Devils Reading group.

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I was sooo frustrated with Henry. He seemed very selfish to me, and he used his influence to change Dorian for the worse. He seemed like all he cared about was pleasing himself and getting as much out of life as he could, regardless of the effect his actions would have on others.
It's one thing to do what makes you happy, but when it hurts people around you, maybe you should stop. With Henry, though, I feel like if you told him that, he would just respond with, "well, if they get hurt, it's their problem. I'm going to do it anyway." Ugh.

I don't agree with his statement. I think that books can be moral or immoral, in that they can teach lessons, both good and bad, to the reader.
For example, in the book, Dorian reads a book that he says changed his outlook on life, even saying it "poisoned" him.
I feel like this book is full of lessons to learn, but Wilde was just trying to defend himself. He was an openly gay man, and so anything he wrote was automatically scandalous. If he said that his book was full of life lessons and everyone should pay attention and learn from it, I think it would only make matters worse for him.

“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”

Amazon.com and Half.com will usually have used copies of books for cheap, but be prepared to pay about $4 for shipping.
For classics, you can usually get a digital copy of those for free. Amazon.com has a large selection of free digital books, and so does archive.org.

"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it."

What do you think?

What do you think?

We all love to read, but sometimes buying all the books we need threatens to put us in poverty. So, my question is, where are all the places that you know of where somebody can buy books without spending a lot of money?

I gave it 1 star, because the whole time I read it, I was irritated.
I found nothing redeeming about the main character, ever. I can understand his discontent with his possessions, and it's true that you don't want the things you own to own you, but his reaction was totally inappropriate. He was obsessed with hurting himself and hurting others, he literally killed people just because, and he was a total hypocrite the whole time. He would get mad at people for doing things, and then go and do something a hundred times worse, and suddenly it's really cool.
There was one female in the whole book, and she was basically only there to give him someone to abuse.
I felt like the profanity and themes were usually unnecessary, just inserted by the author to make the book "cool" or "edgy." I felt like he was trying too hard to reach the demographic.
I realize you can hate the characters and still love the book, but after a while it was just too much. Every single thing the narrator did just made me upset, and I don't like to read a book that's going to make me angry the whole time I'm reading.
Bottom line: the narrator was awful the entire time, and it's super frustrating for me to see him lifted up as a hero to young men. If you're dissatisfied with your life, do something to change it, don't blow up everyone around you. This book made it seem like self-destruction and violence is the answer to your problems, which is just not okay with me.

What did you think?

I think it's not just WW2 literature that focuses on Europe. I think most of everything in our culture is focused on Europe. Like, if you open a history book in an American school, there's going to be very little, if any, information about regions of the world other than America and Europe. If you turn on the History channel, it's almost always about WW2 in Europe, or the Roman Empire. It makes me wonder what it is about our culture that makes us so Eurocentric. Is it because a lot of our ancestors came from Europe? Is it because they speak our language? Is it because their skin looks like our skin? What do you think?

I remember when the jerky lieutenant told them they were going to fly in Super Man even when one engine was down. Then, when they told him they'd be happy to do it, if he joined them, suddenly it wasn't safe anymore. Like, it's totally fine for you to risk your life, but this plane isn't safe enough for someone like me to be on it.
Then later, when he tells them to take the Green Hornet on a search mission, even though everyone knew it had so many problems, he was just demonstrating again that even though he knows the plane is faulty, he doesn't care as long as it's not his life on the line.
It made me upset that someone like that was in charge. It made me wonder how many other people died because their commanders were clueless and heartless.

What do you think?

What do you think?

What do you think?

Yes. For one, running that much would have left his body in very good shape. More than that, though, I believe the athletic career gave him a certain mental toughness that would allow him to push through some of the hardships he would face. On pg. 34, as Louie is running a race in the Berlin olympics, he decides to sprint as fast as possible for the last lap, "He found himself thinking of Pete, and of something that he had said as they had sat on their bed years earlier: A lifetime of glory is worth a moment of pain. Louie thought: Let go."
Sprinting as hard as possible after already running hard for several laps would be hard for a lot of people, especially if you know you wouldn't win the race anyway. That attitude would help him face any number of hardships later.