Book Reviews by SAMD Students ( originals )
The following presents the titles in alphabetical order ( note that titles starting with ‘The’ and ‘A(n)’ are listed under the second words! )
* = more challenging ( length / language )
Bend It Like Beckham, by Narinder Dhami
( Michaela Kadorik )
The story is based on a film. The main theme of the book is an Indian girl’s passion: „football“. Everything that goes through her mind is all about this boys`sports.
The main character in this book is Jesminder Bhamra, called Jess. She lives in London with her family in a small town called Southall. They hope that she will go to a law school. Finally she gets married to a polite Indian man. I have to mention that her family is very strict about the Indian religion. Being honest towards parents and getting good marks at school is very important for them. Her future is absolutely clear to her parents. Deep down, Jasminder wants the exactly opposite. Football is her personality. She has a hero:”David Beckham”. On day she would like to play as well as he does.
She has to keep it a secret that she plays football in her free time. Parents don`t like her to do that because while playing football she gets in physical touch with teammates. After a while she gets talent-spotted by Jules. She grabs the chance to join the Hounslow Harriers which is a local women`s team. Jesminder is very happy about it but it looks as if it won`t last for long.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in doing sport and has a specific ambition. We have to do things that makeus happy and allows us to be ourselves. I am glad that I decided to read this book because it showed me that dreams can come true. The book lifts you out of your everyday life. Here in Switzerland we do not know anything about Hindi culture. So I think it`s very nice to get in touch with this.
( Tabea Baumgartner )
The book I would like to review is Bend it like Beckham written by Narinder Dhami. The story is based on an original screenplay.
The story tells about a young Indian girl, Jesminder Bhamra, who dreams of playing football one day. Jesminder grows up in a town somewhere in Britain and lives with her family. Her parents wants Jess to live a life of a traditional Indian woman, which includes possessing the skills of cooking all the different Indian dishes. But Jess is more of a European woman and doesn’t want to marry the guy who is promised her. One day a girl who plays football in a club observes Jess playing in the park and asks her to join the women football team she plays in. Jess follows the invitation and finds a new passion. However, with this also a time of struggle begins for her, a time in which she has to face conflicts between herself, her culture and her family.
There are many memorable characters in the book, especially Jesminder. What I really like about her is that she doesn’t give up although that means lying to her parents. I would recommend this book to everyone who has to lie to people he loves in order to achieve his dream. I also find it very interesting to learn more about the Indian culture. The book shows how hard life can be for young women who want to be independent but still are not willing to give up their origin.
The only point I would criticise about the book is the vocabulary. The author often forms difficult sentences and uses a lot of colloquial words, which makes it hard to understand for people who are not native speakers.
( Annina Fischer )
The book I would review is “Bend it like Beckham”. It is about an Indian girl who wants to play soccer professionally. Their parents are against her dream, so she has to lie to make her dream come true.
Jess is fond of soccer, but her parents are strongly religious. They have two daughters and all what they want for them is a good education and a friendly Indian husband. So the parents are against soccer completely. Particularly her mother is against soccer and she is all the time worried about her girls and very big-headed. In her opinion only boys should play soccer and girls should drink a coffee with their friends and they should learn how to cook. When Jess was younger she played with all the guys in a park every day but now when she is 18, she figured it out that in her hometown, somewhere in England, there is a soccer team for women. She has to lie to her parents, so that she can go to training every day. She is so happy and pleased to play there and she makes a lot of new friends with her teammates and her teacher. One day, her parents find it out, and they have a long discussion at home but she keeps lying. In the end everything is going to be alright. She gets a grant for a high school in America and her parents abet her in every situation.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in sports. Sport freaks understand her situation and why she started to lie to her parents. In the book you come to know about another religion. It is very important for Hindi, that English boys don’t touch Indian girls. It is different from my country, nearly everybody is Christian. This book gives a new point of view of another culture and religion. All in all, it is very entertaining and enthralling, so you can’t stop reading.
( Jasmin Steiner )
Bend it like Beckham is an interesting book for teenagers. The main character is called Jess, she is a girl who loves playing football. Her biggest dream is to play like David Beckham, but there is a great problem, she is Indian. The culture of the Indians expects girls to manage the household and not to do sports. When Jess is in a girl’s football team the stress is really beginning and Jess is confronted with the hard side of a teenager’s life. The book is suitable for people who like football and who want to know something about a different culture.
I love ‘Bend it like Beckham’ because you never know what will happen and so is it exciting until the end. Although it is very interesting, I think it is a good book for girls and not really for boys.
( Manuela Gerber )
The book I would like to review is Bend it like Beckham written by Narinder Dhami. This book is based on the original screenplay. It tells us a story about an Indian girl who decides to play football although her parents try to forbid it by all available means.
The Indian girl Jesminder starts to play in a woman football side after Jules has discovered her talent in the park. But Jess’ parents aren’t very pleased that Jesminder ignores the Indian culture. They are less and less excited after they recognized that love is involved – and to make matters worse:: he isn’t an Indian man.
So what I find interesting in the book is that the Indian culture clashes with the typical British fascination for football. The parents’ attitude that an Indian girl needs an Indian man is also absolutely incongruous in the British society. The two lovers, Jess and Joe, Jesminder’s trainer, have a hard road ahead.
Although I’m not normally keen on love stories and football, I’m glad that I decided to read the book because I learned much about Indian culture. It’s absolutely intriguing how Jess tries to hide that she’s playing football. I also found it impressive how Jesminder fights against her culture, the parents’ attitude and for her love with Joe.
* Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
( Pascal Nötzli )
This review refers to the novel‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley. It’s basically a science fiction novel which plays in the future, where the state has absolute control over the citizens. The aim of that state is to maintain happiness for everyone, using methods like influencing babies even when they’re still embryos or offering the citizens soma, a drug that guarantees happiness with no side effects, anytime they want.
People in that state are extremely used to that situation, they can’t imagine living in a different way, more freely for example, and that’s where this novel sets in. It mainly tells the story of Bernhard Marx, a high ranking citizen in that community, who feels like he doesn’t really belong to those surroundings. To see something different for once, he decides to go to a reservation zone, in which people live the natural way, where babies don’t come from bottles but from mothers. When he meets the savage John there and brings him back to the civilized world, everything starts to reel…
Personally, I really like this novel. It is really provoking and shocking. When I read about how little babies were traumatized so they would hate certain things and be of more use to the society that really made me think about the world we live in now, and how everything could go down the wrong way. In ‘Brave New World’ you often get confronted with words like happiness and freedom. It shows the conflict between an artificial happiness, as I would call it, and the freedom of the individual. In the society the book describes, freedom gets totally suppressed: everyone is living happily, but no one has the possibility to live his life like he wants to, because he’s actually conditioned to love the life he’s going to have beforehand.
I think I can recommend that novel to probably everyone, who is able to read it, even though there’s a lot of difficult vocabulary, since complicated scientific processes are described as well. In my opinion, it really broadens one’s horizon and makes one think about important things people should have, freedom of speech, for example.
( Curdin Stöhr )
The book I would like to review is called `brave new world` written by Aldous Huxley. Although the book was published in 1932, it plays in 2540. It describes a utopian society, where stability, peace and freedom seem to be guaranteed.
In this society babies aren’t made in a normal way. They are produced in bottles. Their education is more a kind of brainwash. They call it hypnopaedia. Each child gets this education based on the class it has been assigned to. Bernard Marx is one of these `produced humans`. He seems to be all alone and wants to break out of that society where everybody is happy and drugged up to their eyeballs. So he visits one of the few remaining Savage Reservations, where the old, imperfect life still continues. From there he takes a Savage back, but the Savage can’t get on with his new life and completely loses control.
I found it great how detailed the book is written. You get a very good insight into this `brave new world`
I’d suggest this book to readers who are interested in futuristic stories. It’s an interesting book but the language is on a very high level.
( Patrik Herzog )
The book I would like to review is ‚Brave New World‘ by Aldous Huxley. The book was published in 1932, but the plot takes place in 2540. After the big war, which took place a few years before, nearly the whole human race is ruled by one single government. Since that moment, babies have been ‚produced‘ and educated in factories. The human race is separated into five main classes – the Alphas are the highest ones, the Epsilons are the lowest ones. To immobilise the population, the government deals out a drug called soma, which makes everybody feel happy.
But there are also some reservations, where the savages live – uncivilised, viviparous people. And when the two worlds clash, there’s a lot of trouble arising.
What I find very interesting is the idea of a utopian, perfect society, where everybody should be pleased and carefree. The book explains very carefully, why this utopian society isn’t that good , however.
It isn’t a very thrilling story with a lot of action, but I think it’s a very an interesting book about a special society. I would recommend this book to everyone who’s interested in the way a society performs.
Half Life, by Roopa Farooki
( Lukas Schibli )
I will tell you something about the book Half Life, written by Roopa Farooki. It deals with a woman from Singapur. After things have changed - her father dies - she leaves her lover Jazz and she flees to London. Her life doesn’t take a turn for the better so she takes drugs which destroyher completely. Everybody who reads this book will agree that she‘s getting deeper and deeper in a vicious circle. She takes drugs and her character changes completely. Actually, she still loves her Jazz but after dating a doctor for 6 months, she wants to marry him. If you want to know how this story ends, you will have to read this book.
The book is quite interesting. It discusses a lot of human problems. This book showshow a life of somebody can change entirely and also gives useful advice for your own life. Now I am sure that I will do it better than Aruna. In this book you can absolutely discover that running away is not the easiest way.
I could read this book without any problems because the vocabulary is not very large. The reading is very modern because the world is getting more and more global, so relationships can exist over a huge distance. For example my girlfriend could live in Australia and I would stay in Switzerland, there wouldn’t be any communication problems because of the world wide web. Everything is possible in our time.
There aren’t many characters in this book, so it’s very easy to get into it and understand everything from the very start.
I am very sure that the author herself has gone through all the things she is telling about in this book: because of that she is able to write the story so authentically.
I believe that this book isn’t very popular for men, actually I would say it’s written for women. But I’m still glad that I took this book and would also recommend it to everyone!
A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest J. Gaines
(Dominik Huber )
The book I would like to review is “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Graines. It’s about a black man called Jefferson that gets wrongfully arrested and sentenced to death for murdering three people.
The book shows the way black people were treated in the late 1940’s. As Jefferson got arrested his godmother asked Grant, the teacher of the quarter Jefferson used to live in, to teach him to be a man before he would walk into the arms of God. Jefferson’s people had to fight very hard to get the right to even see him and even then they were treated differently than white people would.
The main characters are Jefferson, Grant and his girlfriend Vivian. You don’t learn much about the Jefferson before his time in jail. He has been a waterboy in the fields the people in the quarters worked in. After he got arrested he changed from an average worker to a depressive, unfriendly and sad human being. He didn’t act like a man any more. In court they called him a pig and that’s what he acted like in jail. He accepted the fact that he wasn’t a man any more. The man his godmother had chosen to change his behaviour was Grant. Grant was the teacher of the quarter, a very intelligent but kind of ignorant man that had grown up with Jefferson. He didn’t know how to change Jefferson but he tried everything. Vivian is the one that made him tryit again and again. Without her he’d given up everything and just walked away. She is a divorced mother of two children and also a teacher.
What I find very interesting is the way Jefferson’s and Grant’s relation changes in the course of the story and the conflict between Grant and the reverend of the quarter. Grant didn’t believe in God and the reverend thought the only thing that could help Jefferson was God.
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It shows you the life of so many different people and makes you think about the way people were treated at that time. It definitely takes you out of everyday life and sometimes makes you kind of sad.
Lies of Silence, by Brian Moore
( Beatrice Grether )
The book I would like to review was written by Brian Moore and is entitled Lies of silence.
The city in which this story basically takes place is Belfast in Northern Ireland. It’s about a conflict between the IRA and the protestants- as you can imagine, it deals with religion. However, religion isn’t as important as the story. What is special is that you really feel with the characters because sometimes it makes you happy to read that the people don’t have any sorrows and and then again it makes you e.g. angry or sad because of what is happening in the book.