Thomas’s Comments (group member since Aug 24, 2014)

Thomas’s comments from the BDCHS Advanced Reading group.

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin is the second book in the series: A Song of Ice and Fire. It takes place after the events of the first book, though some overlap slightly. The king, Robert Baratheon is dead, and Joffrey has been crowned as his heir. Many people disagree with this and four others rise to become the new rulers. the first is Renly Baratheon, the youngest of the three brothers, the so called Rainbow King, named after his personal guard, all knights with a different color armor of the spectrum. Renly is the most frivolous of the prospective kings, being arrogant enough to hold tourneys within his own camps as he moves to conquer the kingdom. The next is the eldest of the Baratheon brothers, Stannis. Perhaps the most stubborn of the three, and in my opinion, the most tedious, he could not be more different from Renly if he were of a different bloodline. Stannis rules from Dragon's Keep and claims he is by right, ruler of the kingdom by being the eldest living heir, and due to his claim of being the resurrected god of a mysterious cult, led by Melisandre, the Red Priestess, who aids Stannis by killing his enemies with creatures made of smoke that she gives birth to whenever she is near a rival of Stannis. The third person to claim a right to the throne is Robb Stark, the eldest brother to Arya, Jon, Rickon, Sansa, and Bran. (in order of best to worst not counting Robb whom I don't really have an opinion on) Robb, the King in the North, gathers an army of the enemies of the Lannisters, and marches South, defeating the Lannisters in every battle, and even managing to capture Jaime Lannister, who is known as one of the most skilled warriors in Westeros. The fourth claimant to the throne is Balon Greyjoy, the Iron King. I'm not quite sure what claim he has to the throne but he seems to really want it and his son, Theon is one of the most entitled brats in the entire book, so naturally, I might be a bit biased against him. Balon's forces attack mostly by sea and are led by Balon's daughter, Asha. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, Daenerys Targaryen is travelling across the Red Desert in search of an army to gather. She has gained more followers as The Mother of Dragons which is probably the coolest title in this book. Her dragons, Viserion, Rhaegal, and Drogon, have grown and are large enough to ride on her shoulder like monkeys mixed with parrots. Dany and her khalasar find an abandoned city, and take refuge there before being approached by some mysterious travelers who ask to see the dragons, then lead her and her people to the city of Quarth. The ruler there, Xaro Xhoan Daxos, spends most of his time trying to get her to marry him, claiming he loves her when in reality, the customs of his people say that during a marriage ceremony, the bride and groom may both ask one thing of the other, be it material or anything else, and the other must give it, no matter what it is. Daxos planned to use this to steal one of Dany's dragons. Also, during her stay in Quarth, Daenerys is repeatedly harassed by a member of the Mage's Guild in Quarth, Pyat Pree. He promises many things to her and she denies him all but one time, where she gains information on the happenings in Westeros, but Pree attempts to kill her and is thwarted by one of her khalasar. After this, the city turns on her, and she goes to the docks to purchase a ship that can take her to one of the Seven Kingdoms. While on the dock, an assassin attempts to kill her with a manticore scarab, a jewel encrusted beetle whose sting in deadly, however, this attempt fails thanks to the intervention of two men who had been following Dany to the docks. Now back across the world again, Arya Stark has cut her hair and joined a caravan to join the Night's Watch disguised as a young man named Arry. This goes on for a while and she makes some (kind of) friends. Hot Pie, some other kid, and Gendry, a blacksmith from the kingdom. the Night's Watch member who rescued Arya, Yoren, is the only one who knows who she is, but he dies in a scuffle with a small host of Lannisters who ignore the neutrality of the Night's Watch. the only survivors are Arya, Gendry, Hot Pie, and the three men who had been shackled in a cart at the end of the caravan, Biter, Rorge, and Jaqen H'ghar, a criminal who later owes Arya a debt of thee lives, which is the number of men he killed with a hatchet she tossed to him before escaping the battle. Arya, Hot Pie, and Gendry all are captured and sent to Harrenhal, which is full of Lannister allies. They are put to work as slaves, Arya as a errand girl, Gendry as a smith, and Hot Pie in the kitchens. Arya is surprised to find Jaqen in Harrenhal and is reminded that all she needs to do is say the name of someone she wants dead, and he will make sure it happens. The first name she utters is the name of her "warden" Chiswyck. the day after she said the name, Chiswyck was found dead after supposedly slipping and falling from a flight of stairs. The next name was of Chiswyck's replacement, Weese. Weese was found dead later, killed by his loyal dog. Arya then learns that a host of northmen, allies to her brother Robb have been captured and put in cells below Harrenhal. She asks Jaqen to free them, but he declines because there are five guards, and he only owes her one name. She threatens to name Jaqen as her third name, thereby forcing him to commit suicide, unless he helps her. Jaqen reluctantly agrees and makes a plan that succeeds in freeing the northmen. The northerners capture Harrenhal and put it under the command of Roose Bolton. Jaqen says farewell to Arya and changes his face. He leaves her with a coin that can help her find him again should she want to. Arya later makes a plan to escape Harrenhal with Gendry and Hot Pie. Now we go North, where Jon Snow, the bastard of Ned Stark has gone past the wall with a host of Black Watch men, seeking the find Mance Rayder, a former Night's Watchmen who joined the wildlings and seeks to conquer the Wall. Jon is instructed to go with Qhorin Halfhand, an elite Night's Watchmen who lost a large amount of his right hand in a battle, so he trained to fight with his left instead, making him an even more skilled warrior than before, hence the name. Jon and Qhorin lead a small portion of the host to find intelligence on the whereabouts of Mance Rayder's army. They lose multiple watchmen as they go, and eventually Jon and Qhorin are all that is left. Qhorin repeatedly asks Jon if his sword is sharp as the travel. they enter a thin tunnel and Qhorin says it is the perfect place to make their stand. Qhori instructs Jon to yield if they are overrun, and to join Mance's army as a spy, and to do anything they ask of him to join. Sure enough, they are overrun, and Jon yields as he was told. The officer of Mance's army tells Jon to proved his loyalty by killing Qhorin, and Qhorin draws his sword. Jon reluctantly fights him and manages to win with a slash to the throat with the tip of his blade, winning his entry into the ranks of Mance Rayder's Army. Now onto my least favorite of the Starks, Bran. Bran is made the lord of Winterfell because Robb is off in battle to become king. Bran is only the lord of Winterfell for a short time however, before Theon Greyjoy, my absolute least favorite character shows up and takes it without a fight. Theon had about twelve men. He took Winterfell without a fight. Winterfell. The same Winterfell that is regarded as one of the impenetrable forts in the Kingdom apart from Storm's End and the Eyrie. Bran escapes Winterfell with the help of Jojen and Meera Reed, Osha, and Hodor. Bran and Rickon part ways for safety reasons and aren't seen again till the next book. Anyway, on to Theon. This entitled brat with a superiority complex the size of King's Landing is introduced as he heads back home to the Iron Islands. He had been living at Winterfell since he was very young as a ward to ensure the truce between the Starks and the Greyjoys. He makes it back and promptly tries to make advances on his sister. Granted, he didn't know it was his sister until she laughed in his face but still. He is ridiculed heavily by his father for "going soft" during his absence. Theon hatches a plan to take Winterfell and it succeeds, but he did not anticipate having to hold it. Winterfell falls after Theon is tricked by Ramsey Snow, the Bastard of Bolton into opening the gates. Glad I got that over with. On to Sansa. Sansa is engaged to Joffrey which is pretty much the worst thing that can happen to her at the moment. She still manages to keep up the appearance of love and is mentored (sort of) by Cersei on how to be a queen. None of this matters following the Battle of Blackwater howeevr since Joffrey is then betrothed to Margaery Tyrell. Sansa is delighted to hear this but has to act distraught because everybody has to act like they like Joffrey. Meanwhile, Tyrion Lannister, the only one that doesn't make my skin crawl, is up to his usual schemes. He has been made Hand of the King and is using the title to place his men where those loyal to Cersei where. We don't know why yet but it will be obvious soon probably. During the Battle of Blackwater, or as I like to call it, the Burning Boat Battle, Tyrion is forced to lead a small group of soldiers into a battle with Stannis, who is assaulting the castle. Tyrion actually does really well for a dwarf half the size of the men he is cutting down. Tyrion gets knocked into one of the boats and one of his knights offers him his hand. Tyrion luckily doesn't accept it since all the night planned to offer was a sword to the face. Tyrion wakes up weeks later with quite a scar on his face. I really enjoyed this book and I think it is a little bit better than the last as it involved a little less buildup, the beginning was slow but it delivered fantastically. The theme within this book shows how the lower class people are harmed when the upper class lords and such are all throwing tantrums over who gets to be king. I would definitely give it 5 stars.

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer is an exciting and frightening true story about an expedition to reach the top of Mt. Everest that went horribly wrong. Jon Krakauer was hired to climb Mt. Everest and write an article about the transformation of the mountain from a threatening endeavor to a tourist trap. He joins a group of climbers that includes Mike Groom, a guide from Adventure Consultants, a client from A.C., Doug Hansen, Rob Hall, the head guide from A.C., Beck Weathers, a doctor, Ang Dorje, Rob Hall's main Sherpa, Scott Fischer, the rival of Rob Hall, and lead guide for Mountain Madness, Anatoli Boukreev, one of Fischer's guides, Lopsang Jangbu, Fischer's best Sherpa, Tim Madsen, a client of Fischer's group, Neal Beidleman, one of Fischer's guides, Ian Woodall, the leader of the South African group, Sandy Pittman, from NBC, and Makalu Gau the leader of the Taiwanese group. Jon joins a group and begins the climb, the climb is cut into sections, there are multiple camps along the way up, Base Camp, Camp 1, Camp 2, Camp 3, and Camp 4. The idea is to Climb from one camp to another, stopping for a few days at each camp, then moving on the the next. As they climb the mountain, the differences in everyone's skill level shows, many people rely heavily on the others and the guides, whereas others are very qualified and begin with little trouble. There isn't a death until about halfway through the book, when a Sherpa gets sick and is airlifted back to the bottom, however, he does not make it. The turn-around time set by Rob Hall is 2:00 PM, meaning if you didn't reach the top by then, you had to turn around and go back. Jon and a few others make it, but there are some who did not listen to the turn around time and went on past it. On the way down, a storm hits them, and many people get stranded, including Rob Hall and Doug Hansen, they were never found. Scott Fischer is found dead and Beck Weathers almost dies, but makes it back to Camp with a serious case of frostbite on his arm. The theme of this book i my opinion is not to get over-confident. Many people joined the expedition thinking it would be easy, and many of them died. From this story I learned that when people see a challenge, they will always want to conquer it, no matter the cost. Overall I really enjoyed this book and would give it a 4/5.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin is a fantastic work that sends you into a world of fantasy, politics, betrayal and war. The books unfolds from multiple points of view, beginning with Ned Stark of Winterfell, going on to Tyrion Lannister the Half-man, to Daenyres Targaryen, Last of the Dragons, and many more, to reveal an entire web of characters and interactions. While the book is long, I was not bored with the story at any point, constantly wondering whether or not my current favorite character would live to see the next page. If there was one thing i learned from this series, don't trust anyone named Lannister. I gave this story a 5 out of 5.

Monster is a book about young Steve Harmon, he is a perfectly normal boy except for the fact that he was recently accused of being a lookout in a local drug store robbery that ended in the death of the owner. Others accused of being involved include Richard "Bobo" Evans, and James King. The story plays out in a court room, but also in Steve's journal, as he writes down the occurrences as if it were a screenplay. I learned in the story that court rooms can hold just as much prejudice as the outside world. Overall, the way the story presented was very interesting, I found that I wasn't very invested in any of the characters, and though the story was definitely suspenseful, it still lacked a way to keep me hooked. I gave this book a 3 out of 5.