Satsuki-chan
Since: May, 2015
11/09/2020 20:59:07
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Literature My favorite book ever
My favorite novel ever written, the ending makes me cry every single time and it reminds me of when I was young before my spirit was crushed as I grew up. </3
YasminPerry
Since: May, 2015
06/02/2016 17:37:53
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Literature Not so bad as I thought
EDIT: Due to personal life experiences, this book is starting to grow on me. Plus, it is very well-written ...upped to four stars. (Will probably re-read & write a better review soon.)
Literature Left a big impression on me in elementary school
This book is clearly about high school and teenagers. And corruption, teachers bending the rules for the popular kids who they like better, and how groups of thugs with connections actually run things. It is not meant for elementary schoolers, but I happened to find it in a book pile in my house, and picked it up and started skipping around.
There was a lot I didn't understand, due to my young age at the time, which is likely nine or ten. But I could certainly understand a vividly portrayed world of horrifying school corruption. And already having a distrusting view of institutions to some extent, this book really helped confirm what I kinda already knew - the powerful and well-liked get away with everything, and the system is rigged in their favor.
Is that true? Is it not true? I've since grown up to witness exactly that. Special treatment of jocks in high school, for instance. And hear horror stories of people who fought back against bullies but got in trouble, while the bully had nothing happen to them.
The Chocolate War portrays things I found truly shocking, and in some cases genuinely surprising. In a Catholic school (something I was unfamiliar with as a kid), a teenager claims that Jesus was just another random person who walked the Earth, while the teen saying this is hot stuff by comparison. I am no longer Christian, but I could not believe what I was reading. I was shocked and pissed at a teacher collaborating with a teenager who was planning to harass the main character in order to prevent him from sabotaging "school spirit" (a concept my autistic self always found pointless and stupid). Because school spirit is more important than anything else, apparently. And the beatdown of the main character in a stupid fight put on in front of a crowd, where he is severely punished for defending himself from an illegal move.
It was all savagery and cruelty in the name of what? School spirit? Again, keep in mind I read this in elementary school and didn't fully understand the story. But even at the age of nine or ten, I was having my worldview shaped... no, confirmed, by a book that told uncomfortable truths and did not mess around and lie to readers that everything will get better in the end. And that's something I can truly respect this book for. But damn, what a brutal lesson.
Currently, as I write this review, we're living in times in which students have engaged in mass protests in schools to fight against causes such as corrupt administrations that do nothing about bullying of people the school administrators don't like. There's hope, but what we really need is literature that not only teaches that lesson, but the importance of keeping up the pressure. Just wait - if that ever happens, then that book will inevitably face pressure to ban it just like this one did.