Outlander - Diana Gabaldon

Could not put it down...

I saw the trailer for the series by mistake and realized that the topic was right up my alley: historical and supernatural...

Oh, yeah...! So we were off to a great start but I will admit that I haven't even finished season one of the series. But I devoured the book...

Which is unusual because I do not usually enjoy romance novels. For those of you who have not read the book and are thinking about it, let me just give you some background information and then you're free to scurry off into a corner only to emerge when you've finished reading. The main character is Claire Randall who was a nurse in World War II and married to Frank Randall who has been away for the war. They decide to go to Scotland for a second honeymoon in order to break the ice between them after years of being apart. While in Scotland, Claire touches a standing stone and is sent back in time to the 18th century where she meets Jamie Fraser.

That's all you're getting from me. You'll just have to read the book and find out what happens next. For those of you who have watched the series, read the book. It's by far better and more realistic.

This book allows us the opportunity to look at a very turbulent time in Scottish history through a modern eye. Claire faces many difficulties for three very simple reasons:

1) She's a woman
2) She's English
3) She's educated

This pretty much sums up everything the Scottish church feared in the 18th century and before and because the church feared it, so did the people.

I grew up in Wales but I have never had a Scottish friend and so reading this was my first introduction to Scottish culture. I have to admit that I loved it. Celts met Vikings and the giants had offspring with huge muscles and flaming red hair to piss of the short, white little Englishmen with guns down the street. There is no love-loss between the Welsh and English and I found myself and avid Scottish independence supporter while reading. I'd just like to point out that I'm speaking for the book and modern day politics are not to be included - Sorry Braveheart, you know I love you really!

I fell in love with the characters and their spunk and Claire's defiance in the face of all obstacles. I do however, have to say that I love the fact that you feel the fear of 18th century women through Claire and possibly even more so because in her time it was not unusual for women to be educated or to talk back. Admittedly I find the sassy Claire on the series is a little too far fetched from reality. The Claire in the book is far more aware of the boundaries of 18th century women and stays within them as much as she possibly can because she knows to overstep them will land her in the docks or possibly cost her her life. This was their reality. Their job was to obey and populate, no more - just as it was for most of the world at the time and remains so in certain places today.

*Spoiler Alert ON*

The love, the love, the love... The love between Jaime and Claire is beautiful and pure. It is one that is grown over time and not a fleeting moment of passion. It is the love we all hope to one day have and cultivate.

I have to admit... and I am both sorry but then again I'm not, seeing as there are eight of them, that I haven't continued to read the books. I started the second one but it began nnnnnoooowwhhere near where I had imagined it would. Those of you who have read the book I think will agree that there is a HUGE jump between the ending of the first and the beginning of the second book. I will eventually get round to reading it but I was happy with the way the first book ended and had left some questions still unanswered but you in a nice enough position that you felt that no matter what, everything would eventually be right with the world... and the second book took a sledge hammer to my head and heart and ruined everything. It didn't ruin everything of course but you know what I mean. The second book starts with so many new questions, so much missed time and so up in the air that I panicked... I wanted answers and I wanted them fast and it looked like I would have to finish the book in order to get them so I bailed.

*Spoiler Alert OFF*

But all in all a great read and a good perspective bringer for modern times! I cannot promise you that I will read all eight of the books, especially seeing as I haven't even finished the second one yet but you never know...

Here's to good whiskey that put hairs on your chest to keep you safe from the cold!

Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is a beautiful book that gets you asking why we treat people differently for the sake of differences.

The very frank main character, Ifemelu, goes through life just trying to do what we all do: get her education and a job but because of the political unrest in Nigeria at the time, she moves to America to study at university. It's when she gets to America that Ifemelu realizes something: she's black.

Black people aren't black in Africa; they're black when they leave it.

This concept has stuck with me even though I finished reading the book a good couple of days ago. None of us are anything until we go to a place where what we are is a minority. The same is true for anything you can think of. A Scandinavian with bright blonde hair, isn't bright blonde until they go to a Mediterranean country. I don't mean to make racism sound this simple but I wanted to make this a little easier for others, including myself to understand. I grew up in Britain where racism is not as prominent as in America and so Ifelmelu's main plight was something I had to adapt to in order to fully understand.

Adichie reaches into the heart of people and puts their faults on display. People see the differences first. Not only that but people adapt so that their own differences are no longer an issue and then pick on others' differences. She shows this through a character named Emenike, who spends his whole life making up for what he believes to be his faults and once he reaches a position where he is comfortable, he turns the mirror to others around him.

People need to find something wrong or differences in other people in order to feel that they are superior. This is racism... Racism is the need to believe that you are better than someone because your skin is different colour. Racism is narcissism. I really wonder when humans as a species will realize we are all the same. I really wonder because I don't believe it is possible. I hope against hope that it will happen but it won't because people are egotistical. They need to know that they are better. I'm not even sure better is the right word but I believe "good enough" would suit us more. People need to know that they are good enough to fit in with society and know that their place in it is not threatened.

Anyway... I don't mean to rant.

*Spoiler Alarm ON*

Another good criticism of society is Obinze. We all love Obinze. He's the sweet, gentle, intelligent boyfriend back home that Ifemelu loves but also takes for granted. That is until life beats him. Life breaks him, it tears him down and it leaves him depressed and deported back to Nigeria. So he says "Now what?" and finds himself in real estate and a happy chappy in a nappy and a large bank account. "Now what?" there's a girl living with him asking what he plans to do about their relationship... so he might as well marry her and then of course have a child. For those of you who haven't read the book, don't hate him because Ifemelu has already deserted his butt a looong time ago. So after all this is done Ifemelu decides to mess everything up by coming home. I say mess everything up but I don't really mean it. Ifemelu messed everything up the day she stopped calling Obinze but that's for another paragraph. Obzine gets caught up in the flow of life. He looses himself to others' expectations. He gets trapped by responsibilities he should have thought harder about while taking them on.

But don't we all?

*Spoiler Alarm OFF*

We go to university because it's expected of us. For those of you in countries like the States you get into serious debt that you'll be lucky to finish off paying by the time you're 30. We eat crap because we can't afford to buy healthy food because we go to school. We try to get a job when we graduate so we can pay off what we owe, get a house, a car, savings... We go to cafes with our friends on the weekend to take pictures and selfies so that we can put them on social media to impress people we don't even care about because that's what society expects us to do. I look around me and see couples that shouldn't have married. They are miserable and have lost communication with each other. It's not because they never loved each other or the world tore them apart but because they probably decided to marry because it was the next step. They had reached the age and that point in their relationship when there was nothing else to do but get married, or they were together for so long that they couldn't be bothered to explain to those around them the reasons for breaking up so they went with it.

I live in Turkey at the moment and girls do what girls do and boys do what boys do because it is expected of them. Expectations don't mix and almost always come back to building a family of their own.

Ifemelu's parents are perfect. They are perfect because they are two poles of society. Her mother is religious but why? Because if she prays enough for this or prays enough for that God will give her a new car or a new house or send her daughter to America so she can boast about it to her neighbours. Religion shouldn't be about gain; it should be about the love between you and God (or whomever you believe in). Her father... I really liked her father because I believe everyone has had someone like him in their lives. As a child she admired him, she believed he was intelligent and strong but as she grew up she realized that his accent was put on, his language forced to sound like he knew what he was talking about and his whole life was bent around a need to prove that he was smarter than the average Joe. I think we have all felt the disappointment of realizing the person who you took as your role model isn't necessarily all you believed they were. This doesn't mean that you don't love them anymore but that you have grown up. You are now looking at the world and everyone around you without those rosy pink glasses.

But now we come to Ifemelu. I think those who have read the book will agree with me when I say she helps you get things off your chest. She's so frank that it's not her foot in her mouth but yours and she's helping you fit the other one in. Ifemelu is most of us. She's indecisive and she makes one of the biggest changes in her life because Obinze told her it was a good idea. Haven't we all done this before? I allowed myself to be talked into changing degrees in University. I allowed myself to be talked into a job and out of one. We all do it. We talk and we are talked to. Like Ifemelu we decide things on a whim and we sometimes go with it and we sometimes wait for the idea to ferment and then run off into the distance. And we struggle. We struggle and struggle and we do it alone. Just as Ifemelu, when we need help the most we close ourselves up in our rooms and cut away the things that could actually help us because we are miserable and we want to feel it.

When I was reading I got the feeling that Ifemelu was just going with the flow. She lived with the flow and was just waiting to see where it took her. I won't speak for everyone but I know that's how I live. I make plans and I'm pretty good at keeping them but I have no goal or target I'm working for or towards. I know what I want to be when I graduate but I have no idea where I'll be when I do. Ifemelu had no dreams of grandeur or even any idea of what she wanted to be or do. I don't think most people do either. I don't think people who have already retired know what they want to be or do...

I enjoyed this book and I have noticed a change in the way I see things. I think it's silly to say "I'm not racist. Skin colour is not important. I don't even notice." Everyone at some point notices. Do you notice what colour dog your neighbour has? Do you notice what colour car is parked next to yours? Do you notice when someone has a sun tan? Colour is a part of life. You notice. We all notice. It's when you make it an issue that there is a problem. So for myself I will say that I'm someone who does not initially go "Oh, that person's black!" but after reading this book I do notice sooner than I would have before. I don't mean this in a bad way. I didn't have many if any real black friends growing up so I wan't aware of the differences between our bodies. I didn't know that black hair was curly. I didn't know you could bleach skin. Now I see black celebrities and I wonder why their hair is straight and blonde or even more strange, why their blonde hair was straightened and then curled into loose ringlets again... I understand that everyone is free to do what they want with their hair but after reading this book I wished I could see Beyonce all natural and flicking her curls back in a Loreal advert.

I love the constant reminder in this book: Be yourself.

Be yourselves guys!

The books jumps time periods throughout most of it and I will admit that at some point I just wanted to get back to the present and find out what was going on but this is the only negative thing I can say about this book.

Adichie warns us of the dangers of a one track story in her TED Talks speech. She discusses judging people and then sticking with our judgment no matter what. I agree with her. We should all give people the opportunity to be who they are without putting them in a box and labeling them. It is human nature to judge but we should be able to reach beyond that.

The Horse Boy - Rupert Isaacson

A MUST READ!

Where to begin with this book...

What a read...

The Horse Boy is the true story of a father willing to do anything to help his son. I laughed and then cried so many times while reading that the people surrounding me must have thought I was bipolar. (I read mostly on the metro.)

While reading you have to constantly remind yourself that this is true story... Isaacson has documented this part of his life in a such a way, you can hardly believe that we live on the same planet and I ask you not to take this as an exaggeration. I read this book at a time when I was not in a very happy place and it changed my perspective and not because I was grateful that I didn't have autism but because it helped me realize that the world is what you make it...

For those of you who have not read it, read it. I honestly wish I could lend you my copy. Before I go off on a rant about how you should drop everything and get the book, I'll tell you a little bit about it. Don't worry no major spoilers ahead... Rupert Isaacson met his wife-to-be Kristen in India and after a good chase, she eventually agreed to have him. Their son Rowan was born with a rare type of autism that little was known about and so little could be suggested to help both the parents and the child. They bravely struggled on through psychiatrist meetings and special needs child centers and realized a very important fact: none of it did any good. One day Rowan threw himself in front of a horse and a beautiful friendship was born. Betsy the horse helps Rowan to think and speak clearly and his father soon comes up with the idea to take him to Mongolia: where horses and shamanism walk hoof in hand.

One of the things you have to remember is this isn't a fabricated story. It's about a real family in a very real world. A world we are all a part of. You and I could also have our own adventure in the very real Mongolia or Japan or Egypt or wherever you want. I want to say that life is what you want it to be but more often than not, it's what we let it be. This book helped me remember that adventures or epic stories don't exist only on paper or in movies. We all have the power to do something meaningful with our lives if we just take a step back and listen to ourselves. And I mean yourself. Isaacson mentions his inner voice and how it guided him throughout a few of his life changing situations and through their journey in Mongolia and he is a good example of someone who took the initiative and ran with it. This is an incredibly brave thing to do and we should all applaud him for his strength.

He mentions many times that his goal was not to have Rowan cured of his autism. Rowan is autistic, to cure him of that would be to take what makes him himself away. I believe that most people do this to themselves almost on a daily basis. The need to fit in with the majority strips us of the things that make us unique. I've caught myself doing this so many times. I speak Turkish as a second language and I change the way I speak, my body language and to an extent the way I think while talking Turkish in Turkey because I don't want people to know that I am foreign and I am, in most people's eyes, different to them. It takes great confidence to be who you are and this book helped me to remember that I can be myself. I could be myself if I was autistic, bipolar, black, Asian, male, female, American or my next door neighbour.

Relax...

Take a step back...

Isaacson makes a point that I wholeheartedly believe: There are things that cannot be explained. Religion has been replaced by rationality. I believe we should be skeptical because humans have a tendency to try and trick other humans but we should also be open-minded and accept that there are things beyond our comprehension. I'm not telling you to call the nearest shaman and have your kidney stone removed but be open to the fact that being healed by a spiritual force is a possibility.

Nature is also a very important character in the book. I say character because it is one; not just in literature but in our lives as well. I don't mean to get all hippie on your butts right now but we are slipping further and further away from our real habitat. I know people who have never even pet a dog or cat in their entire lives and do not plan to. Nature is there people. No matter how much you ignore it, it's not going away. I honestly wish sometimes that an apocalyptic even would occur and people who don't know the difference between a dandelion and a daisy would suddenly find themselves trying to go the toilet behind a tree! This book is a reminder that nature is there to help us, to guide us; it is pure and it is beautiful. Embrace it...

Their trip was filmed and there is a documentary. Here's the link to its IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1333668/

I haven't watched it yet but after seeing the trailer, you understand the pain of an autistic tantrum. The idea is almost cute in the book thanks the language Isaacson uses and so I was shocked at just how much screaming the little guy got up to in just the trailer.

After reading the book I feel like one of the family and I honestly hope they are all well and above all that they are happy.