September Book Club this Thursday at 7:00pm

National Talk Like A Pirate Day

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

From what I remember of the Disney movie (which I remember pretty well) there was about one scene that matched anything from the source novel by Victor Hugo. As I read the book, I wondered periodically, “How did the screenwriters at Disney make that movie out of this book?”

The novel is about a third of the length of Hugo’s Les Miserable, and by comparison, a walk in the park!

The story is mainly about four people: Quasimodo the Hunchback, Frollo the bishop, Esmerelda the kind gypsy girl, and the soldier Phoebus, all amid the backdrop of the cathedral Notre Dame.

This book, like Les Miserables, is truly about its characters. They deal with love, lust, faith, revenge, forgiveness, and not everyone is all good. Quasimodo is deafened by the bells he rings, and can’t trust anyone to be kind to him; Frollo is losing his religious faith and is obsessed with the young Esmerelda; Phoebus is a womanizing scoundrel (who is also engaged!); and Esmerelda is so smitten with unreturned love for Phoebus that she would give up everything to be with him. 

These  character studies are beautiful, though tragic, and some of the ridiculous (though still realistic) choices that take place make the reader want to yell through the pages at the characters. Even at 185 years old, this novel will make you think of how humanity deals with each other and how it carries out justice. Amid all of this, there is some comic relief, especially with the poet/philosopher Gringoire.

The writing is a lot easier and straight forward than Les Miserables, and if you read this book with the mentality of it being completely new, without ever thinking of the other adaptations, and you’ll love it.

USU Extension Classes postponed

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Genius: The Game

Genius: The Game by Leopoldo Gout

Rex, Cai, and Tunde are three of the most brilliant kids in the world. Which is why they number among the 200 youth who attend The Game, a competition pitting these young geniuses against each other for an unknown prize. Running the Game is the young CEO Kiran Biswas, who seems to have some mysteries of his own. They know this is an oppotunity of a lifetime, not just to compete, but to accomplish their own goals. Rex is determined to find his missing brother, Tunde has to work for a corrupt general to keep his family safe, and Cai (under her blog handle, Painted Wolf) needs to learn more about what's going on behind the scenes of the game, and her father's business. As the competition heats up, these three teens discover they're in more trouble than they know.

When I picked up this book, I was afraid that it was going to be more Hunger Games style kids-killing-kids sort of deal, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out it wasn't. They are competing in engineering and coding and all sorts of awesome, geeky stuff. It had sort of a Ready Player One feel for me, but it's also young adult, so it's a lot cleaner. The book was also very visually interesting with a lot of diagrams and just a cool layout.

Each chapter would trade off between the three main characters telling their own story. I thought all three were likable and interesting characters. Tunde was my favorite, and I think the author did a great job of writing in his voice. Tunde is from Nigeria and his way of speaking is shown without being over the top, and sometimes he throws in a pidgin language which I thought was cool too. It was also nice to see these characters who were very genuine with each other. The story is exciting enough and I'm glad there's not a lot of angst-ridden teenagers running around too.

I was kept interested the whole time reading, and was excited and frustrated to learn that this is the first book in a series. Excited because I am ready for more, and frustrated because it doesn't come out until next year.

Genius is a new book to our library, and it can be found in the Young Adult section.

Pardon our dust