Ok, here I go. First of all, I'd like to clarify that this is not going to be a "normal" review, in fact, I would say it's not a review at all; it's something peculiar, different. So, if you aren't interested in reading this whole thing it's totally fine, I can understand it.
Now, I've decided to call the next paragraphs as:
Chronicle of My Worst Experience of My Entire Life and How a Book Helped Me to Struggle With It
So, the story starts just like this:
Last Friday (August 20th) at night, Hurricane Grace —a major category 3 hurricane— made landfall in Veracruz, Mexico, and after a few hours it had affected the north and center of the state. At least in my town, a little city —a rural city in the north of Veracruz—, many people have lost their homes, others have lost their jobs, and unfortunately, a person who has passed away (and more in the whole state).
Certainly, my family and I didn't believe that consequences would be so disastrous, catastrophic and unbelievable. Thus, when the hurricane struck on Veracruz and then the next day began, we could barely figure out how the true events had occurred: a situation more difficult than we could have imagined.
Go outside, walk through the streets, and see what I did see the next day hurricane had gone across the state, it's something that I can't describe with words, in fact, it's something that makes me feel depressed, scared and a deep sadness.
It's hard to say this but it's a fact that many people have suffered a lot of lacks, including my family and I: there was no light for days, no electricity, no food, no water supply, no markets or shops open; basically the whole city was paralyzed as though it had been frizzed in time.
The curious thing is, because of the fact that we didn't have phone service, radio or TV, we never knew how much this hurricane had damaged our whole city or other near cities until many days afterward; meanwhile people in the rest of the country actually knew about this disaster and its consequences and they had been informed through the news on many platforms or TV.
Perhaps at this point you are asking yourself, "why is this guy talking about this?" Or "how is this supposed to be related to a Verne's book?"
Let me explain that. First of all, my folks and I were working on repairing the damage which was caused in my own house, including a broken tubing and filtration in a restroom. Besides, a tree which was close to my grandfather's house fell during the strong winds, so we needed to help remove it. Things like cleaning up the streets, helping in the neighborhood, removing smashed windows and literally trying to come back everything to its normal state, were certainly a hard and tired work.
Obviously, nobody is thinking about reading in a situation like this, and after a long day all what you need it's go to bed and sleep deeply. But I couldn't. I couldn't sleep during the next three nights, I couldn't help feeling scared and feeling so close to the night when the hurricane had been here, two hours of extreme and powerful winds, thirty minutes of nothing and then, two hours more of winds and rain. It was so far, my worst experience of my life.
But, "what can I do?", I thought. And suddenly I had a brilliant idea: "sit down and read a book". Of course there was no light and in spite of the full Moon, it was actually very dark inside; however, there were a lot of candles. So, I put my book on my desk, a candle next to it, and I started to read for one or two hours each night. The book that I chose to read was one of my current readings: Five Weeks in a Balloon by Jules Verne.
This novel is the first book in the very well known series "The Extraordinary Voyages", which is a series of novels where characters live a lot of adventures and, at the same time, adverse situations; where most times, they reach their ultimate purpose and live for talking about it. What I loved while I read this story was exactly this final statement: “things sometimes are falling apart, but it depends on you to have an awakening, stand up and be strong despite the adversities”.
Undoubtedly, Verne’s book helped me out to be less worried and sad during these days; his three main characters, three courageous, intrepid and adventurous men, made me pass fun moments and try not to think about anything more. Thus, I was completely into the story and despite the fact that I was trying to draw it out, it was no possible. On Monday at night I got to the final chapter and ultimately I had found out something: sometimes, a book is all that you need to be a little bit stronger and to let a bad experience go.
It's highly possible that in a different situation, I had given 3.5 or 4 stars to this novel, if I consider the whole story, how it goes and the ending. But now, it's impossible not to give 5+ stars to a book whose adventures, characters, statements, thoughts, reflections and more, will live with me forever and always.
I'd like to finish this whole "review" with two thoughts I found inside this novel, even though I need to add something before, just for clarifying: A) I'm not a religious person and B) I tend not to believe in miracles, even as miracles just happen, I guess so (I mean, things could have been worse, right?).
“—iQué bello es! —dijo—, y cuán infinito es el poder de Dios hasta en sus manifestaciones más terribles.”
(“How grand it is!” said he, “and how infinite is the power of God even in its most terrible manifestations!”)
“La jornada pasó así, en agradables conversaciones; junto con la fuerza, volvía la esperanza; con la esperanza, la audacia. El pasado se borraba ante el porvenir con rapidez providencial.”
(“…and thus the day slipped by in pleasant chat. With returning strength, hope had revived, and with hope came the courage to do and to dare. The past was obliterated in the presence of the future with providential rapidity.”)
By the way, it’s about 2 AM here in my city, and I still can’t sleep… but I’ll try.