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review: rooftops of tehran

book info: on sale: now copy from: public library pages: 348 review written: 21.12.17 originally published: 2009 edition read: Penguin NAL 2009 title: Rooftops of Tehran author: Mahbod Seraji In a middle-class neighborhood of Iran's sprawling capital city, 17-year-old Pasha Shahed spends the summer of 1973 on his rooftop with his best friend Ahmed, joking around one minute and asking burning questions about life the next. He also hides a secret love for his beautiful neighbor Zari, who has been betrothed since birth to another man. But the bliss of Pasha and Zari's stolen time together is shattered when Pasha unwittingly acts as a beacon for the Shah's secret police. The violent consequences awaken him to the reality of living under a powerful despot, and lead Zari to make a shocking choice... my thoughts: This book was first published in 2009 and I remember adding it to my list around that time but never actually reading it since I preferred checking out library books to ...

The Secret

new years bookish resolutions!

credit Happy New Years everyone! 2013 is going to be an exciting, fun and productive year! With only a few hours left, I'm kind of rapidly putting together this post. Instead of looking behind at this year, I'm going to look forward :) I kind of already made some resolutions on the " hello and bye-bye: BIG CHANGES " post, but I'll summarise  and add a bit more, if you don't mind :) More Reviews I know, I know. I promised myself that my next post on this blog would be a book review, yet that hasn't happened, has it? So this year, I will make it a goal to post more reviews than any other type of blog content. Sounds fair, right? Challenges I stopped doing challenges for two years because I found myself reading books simply to fill in my challenges, and not to read good literature. When I finished a book, I would automatically think "Hey, now I can add this to my challenge bar!" instead of "Damn, what a good book!" I hope that this year wi...

new years clean-out giveaway!

Hallo everyone!   Are you all excited about 2013? Nah, the world hasn't ended and we're moving on to a new year! Over my four years of blogging, I've amassed a somewhat mediocre collection of books that is meagre compared to a lot of bookshelves I've seen. Yet as you know, with the changes to Pages (ha, that rhymes) that I'm starting afresh.   I went through the boxes of books I had in my closet (I ran out of space on my bookshelf and moved a lot of them into boxes) and picked out the books that I knew I could live without. I tend to keep items that have memories attached to them, and I have a few books in this giveaway that mean a lot, like "Fallen" by Lauren Kate, the ARC. It was one of the first times I had gotten a popular book from a publisher, and in ARC form too! Even though I didn't like the story, the actual physical copy of the book was important to me.  Prize Pack #1 are some oldies, hehe.  I have an inventory book where I keep track of all ...

feature and follow #9: THE SHAD---I know, I know

Hallo!   Most of you viewing this must be old followers anyway, but I should reiterate for the new followers. Here on Pages, I kind of tweaked the rules of Feature and Follow to fit my morals about blogging. Here are the "tweaked" rules :D If I followed you, you are NOT required to follow me back: only if you want to :) If you follow me, I'll seriously consider following you back, but it's not guaranteed I don't like how people are required to follow other blogs in this hop. I think one should follow a blog because he or she likes it, not because he/she feels obliged because the other blog owner/writer followed him or her's blog. You know? (Being grammatically correct is a bit wordy). Life's a bit too busy to read blogs that doesn't fit one's taste. I'm quite excited for today's question WHAT BOOK DO YOU THINK EVERYONE SHOULD READ? IF YOU COULD GIFT THE ENTIRE POPULATION WITH ONE BOOK? Hem. In the past, I would have said The Alchemist by Pa...

film review #1: life of pi (spoilers)

Hallo all!   This is my first film review (other than some scrappy ones I did ages ago, like for Tuck Everlasting...but that one was like, two sentences) and I'm really happy to say that it is: Life of Pi! title: Life of Pi director: Ang Lee release date: 2012 studio: Fox 2000 Pictures My thoughts:   I had read Life of Pi for school, and since my teacher didn't really teach it much at all: I had no idea what it try was about, and I didn't really like it. In fact, I hated it.   Conveniently, the film was to come out only a few weeks after I finished reading it. I wondered: how can you make a film about a book that's pretty much a massive metaphor with symbolism on every page? Apparently you can.   As my dad, brother and I walked into the showing, I could see other Indian families there. People probably assumed we were only there because of the Indian actors and how the main character is Indian. Actually, it was because I wanted to watch it because of the book and how...

feature and follow (8): HALLO WORLD!

Welcome, welcome readers of all sorts! New readers, old ones, and even the in-between readers who have heard of Pages, but have never ~gasp~ followed! Oh but no matter; it will soon be remedied as I introduce myself! Hallo :D   This is the first time I've done Feature and Follow Friday's....my last post was sometime in July. Naturally, it means there are many more bloggers I haven't yet met! Please leave a comment below so I can get to know you and therefore, become friends with you :) Here on Pages, I kind of tweaked the rules of Feature and Follow to fit my morals about blogging. Here are the "tweaked" rules :D If I followed you, you are NOT required to follow me back: only if you want to :) If you follow me, I'll seriously consider following you back, but it's not guaranteed I don't like how people are required to follow other blogs in this hop. I think one should follow a blog because he or she likes it, not because he/she feels obliged because the...

hallo and bye-bye: BIG CHANGES

Hallo friends :D   Some major changes going on around here! Read below to find out more :) Blog Design The most obvious change you can tell right away is my blog design. It's only temporary, as I'm having my blog re-designed (custom!). I hope to maintain a clean, minimalistic appearance that's easy to read AND navigate and such. My previous design looked too website-ish and out of touch, no matter how much I liked it. New Features Coming Up I have some ideas for some new features I'd like to have on here later this month into 2013. I need your help on choosing what I should do! Inspired by The Inky Melody : I'd like to do some historical tid-bit posts along with some literary quotes that I enjoy I will continue with the Topic Posts a "Blogging 101" or "Blogger Advice" page where I answer some questions about blogging and provide some of my experience as a blogger (4 years counts as experienced, right?) Some "Blogging Tips" where I post ...

topic: originality in blogging

I thought of doing this weeks Feature and Follow Friday blog event and then realised the promise I made to myself a while back: to not be obsessed with getting new followers. Plus, I didn't have the time to hop around, hehe :D Is Originality Gone? As I was on Parajunkee's website, I saw here post " Blogging 101: Is Originality Gone? " in which Rachel said: " There is nothing but Book Blitzs, Promo Pieces, Cover Reveals and Memes in my Google Reader! And it just exploded. It wasn’t that bad a few weeks ago and now that is ALL IT IS! Is it the holidays? Is everyone stressed out, so they can’t think of anything CREATIVE to post about ?"  I'm a bit smug to say that I haven't done any of these. If you remember, I stopped/never did post of these for these reasons that I mentioned in posts ages ago: No More In My Mailbox: I thought it was people just bragging about all the books they have/ showing off all their ARCs and such. I as a reader don't really ...

books of cultural background

Hello everyone!   No, it's not a topic post. It's actually me procrastinating my studying my delving into book related quests. I'd like to say that my school library is the best. The librarians are true readers, and they buy the latest books to share with the population of the school, most of which do not read. I find myself amongst others who either hang out in the library just to sit on the couches, or like-minded readers who talk about books to me. "Hey, is that really a good book? I heard it was" or "Yeah, I'm looking for a good sci-fi. Do you know any?" I prefer the latter bunch :D  Now, back to the topic at hand. Most of the blogs I'm following review/feature/lust after a lot of YA books that honestly, to me, are trash. Books like Fallen by Lauren Kate and other paranormal books that are shallow and bland. I never mean to offend anyone, author or reader, but it's just how I feel about certain books. So on my quest to find cultural backg...

NEW BOOK! + finals

HALLO!   Perhaps some GIFS of how I'm feeling for finals in less than a week from now! Less than a week from now (" Oh, I have a while before finals, no need to worry yet..wait....in less than a week....NOOOO! ") How I react to " Finals can only help your grade! They're easy, you'll do fine " On the outside, I maintain a chill exterior. "I got this". When truly, inside, when I realise how important my grades are and how crucial it is that I have to pass: "I HAVE A MIGHTY NEED TO PASS!" No amount of studying will prepare me for that day when I walk in the room with nothing but a pencil and face that exam: ON BOOKISH THOUGHTS: Also, I got a book in the mail! This one I ordered off of Amazon and finally received: The first is a glorious, first edition copy of The Shadow of the Wind. It's in mint condition, and contains one of the most haunting, beautiful stories I've ever read within. There's it beside it's sequel, The An...

updates + happy december!

HI EVERYONE! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH! THANK YOU FOR NOT UNFOLLOWING ME IN MY ABSENCE! Updates :   I've missed you all so much, honestly. It's always on the back of my mind that I want to talk to my book blogger friends, that I want to take part in discussions and browse reviews, but I have made the time to do it, balancing between sleep, eating, chores and school. Therefore, I'm proud to declare: I'm BACK! Sadly, two things have happened since I left early November: how I feel inside during this stressful time, haha I dropped out of NaNoWriMo (for reasons explained here ) I'm getting a massive amount of homework, and a resolve to study absolutely  The end of first semester is dawning, which means I have to bring up my straight Bs and 2 Cs in the matter of, oh yeah: 2 WEEKS! And then a full week of final exams. At the start of this week, I thought "Yeah, 3 weeks is plently" but now that it's down to two weeks, I'm thinking, "Oh shit, oh shit, oh...

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