Summer Project : Report #1

My summer project this year is to read 50 books, quite a bald statement if we consider the fact that almost half the summer vacations are gone and I didn't get even close to half that number, even half of a half of half that number :v

Anyway, there is always hope. That's why I'll do my best to catch up with the plan.
Unlike the usual reviews, this project will go reported : I won't review books as much as I will be marking the progress made so far. There will be a report in every 10 books landmark, and if you do the maths then hopefully by the end of summer there will be 5 of them. To do that I'll have to attain the "One book everyday ratio", which is quite hard (but doable !).

Let's start !


1. Mort sur le Nil : 

Author : Agatha Christie
Themes: Detective Work, Mystery.

Rating : 5.5/10

Mini-review : 
After reading "And there there were none", I'm afraid my expectations were high. Add to that the fact that I read this book throughout the duration of 3 months (because I was reading it in the bus when I can sit to read), you can get how it compiled up in my brain. There was no aspect of novelty in the Crime/Mystery cooking formula. Expect the very expected twist in the end, too.


2. The World as I see it :

The review.

3. Wuthering Heights :

The review.

4. Lord of the Flies : 

Author : William Golding
Themes: Human nature, Good and Evil & Primal instinct, Social Satire, Hierarchy, Religion, Fear, Power-lust ...

Rating : 10/10

Mini-review : 
The best book I've had in a long time (clear in the Perfect Score, the first given since I started this blog).
When I started reading this book, I had no idea that in the end, I'd be changed by it. It's that kind of books that makes a difference in you as a human when you least expect it.
The books depicts the "adventures" of a swarm of kids who ended up in a deserted island in the complete absence of adults. It really grows from your average thriller story to a full-blown allegory of society, existentialism and even Life itself.
An inhibiting psychological portrayal of the human society painted with a brush of pessimism. Dark, spooky and somewhat disturbing (if you can really get into books), and a true work of wonder.
Definitely a reread is planned and a full review.


5. Fight Club :

Author : Agatha Christie
Themes: Anarchy, Unaccomplishment, Male portrayal, Violence, History, Psychology ..

Rating : 7/10

Mini-review : 
After watching the movie (that I rated 9/10 for the record), the novel didn't seem to exceed its pictured version. Although brilliant at times, the book leaves you with a bitter taste in your mouth and a lot of uncertainties. The ending was disappointing to some extent (unlike the movie) and supporting characters weren't given any depth. It's the kind of book that could have done better.


6. قنديل أم هاشم : 

Author : Yahya Haqqi
Themes: Various : Belief, Destiny, Freedom, Choice, Love ..

Rating : 9/10

Mini-review : 
I think I fell in love with short stories thanks to this work right here. Every story is a retake on an idea, a thought that the writer had at some point of his life, either by meeting a person or internalizing the possible scenarios in his head. I'm glad he got them on paper because they're brilliant.
The lack of ending and development is more redeemed by the pleasure of standing on a cliff, you guess an ending or imagine it or deduce it or even leave it behind .. It's entirely up to you.
Great use of symbols too (the stories themselves are symbols to draw a bigger image).


7. The Old Man and the Sea :

Author : Earnest Hemingway
Themes: Remembrance, Loneliness, Patience ..

Rating : 6.5/10

Mini-review : 
I give 6.5 to the experience of reading the work, not the work itself. It's always mentioned as one of the best novels of the English Language which, although relative, it usually means that the work have some literal value. Unlike most of the classics, I failed to see this value in this work, maybe because I was tired, maybe because the air was hot, or maybe because I just don't like this kind of books.
Reading this work felt exactly like the process of fishing (haha, Fisher .. Sea .. get it ? Okay), boring and not necessarily rewarding at the end.
Was that intended by the author ? If it was, then this novel deserves more credit.

8. خواطر شاب :

Author : Ahmad Al Shugairi
Themes: Thoughts. (translation of the title, very clever of me)

Rating : 8.5/10

Mini-review :
The book is a collection of mini-articles written by Ahmad Al Shugairi in diverse matters such as spirituality, mentality, politics, religion ..
I liked the book because at times it just put words to my thoughts! Maybe more precisely and with a studied intention but I felt myself mentally saying "I agree! .. Exaactly !".. which is cool.
Another thing I liked since the book is a promotion of the Islamic "lifestyle", the writer didn't pick up the "religious" tone anywhere throughout the book. It all laid in that sweet spot of "moderated Islam" and all it sought was a better understanding of the religion. It's a call for a change of paradigm, a gradual revolution of the mind and the soul first, that will eventually lead to the birth of the Islamic society as it should be, not as it unfortunately is.
I only wished the book was longer and had a stronger thematic orientation, but it's fine, really.


9. Of Mice and Men :

Author : John Steinbeck
Themes: Human Bonds, Travel, Loneliness, Morality and Mental Ability, Need ..

Rating : 9.5/10

Mini-review : 
The feels train hit me, and it hit hard.
Prepare yourself to the Roller-coaster of feelings that it "Of Mice and Men".
I loved the book since the very first pages, the brilliant writing style makes you feel acquainted to the two protagonist and takes off the need to dozens of pages of introduction and background. Lennie is straight-out adorable, with all the dorky air around him and the big-boy thing going on, very innocent and likeable (watch out). George is the contrast of Lennie. The two set on a journey that is bigger-than-life and inspiring.
I won't give out anything about the book, but sincerely, if you were awake enough while reading it, it will lead you silently to the ending you don't want to believe it's the ending.
BIG thumbs-up to the use of foreshadowing, it was a very bitter-sweet sensation of guessing and discovering that earned this novella a spot in my current top 5.
I actually felt something in the end, can you believe that ?

10. Les Fourberies de Scapin

Author : Molière
Themes: Greed, Destiny, Social Satire.

Rating : 8/10

Mini-review : 
For my first Molière, it's definitely a good one. I know now what "Comedy" as a genre stands for (I didn't finish any of the plays that were suggested in our Frnech program, so this one is a learning experience for me :p).
Well, what to say ? It's a funny play, a social satire sugarcoated in an amusing piece of literature. All the characters were caricaturized to exaggerated versions of their archetype, and the story wraps up hopefully making some points across.
One thing to confess : I'm still not ready to "literary" and "classic" works in french. Although this piece is a relatively simple and unsophisticated script, I really had bad time understanding it all, I deliberately left some pieces out because there were too many weird words for me to guess. Of course, that doesn't mean I won't try later. One baby step at a time.
I admit laughing like a dumb at some hilarious parts of the dialogue for some reason (well they're hilarious that's the reason) and that's something I'd like to have from time to time.


Well, those are my first 10 reads this Summer. I had a late start but screw it, it's a start.
I hope I can finish my second 10 before the end of this month because if not, well I'll fail myself.

I need to know why although I enjoy reading much more than lurking on Facebook and I still manage to switch the switches in my mind darn it.

8. Wuthering Heights

Name : Wuthering Heights
Writer : Emily Brontë
Publishing year :  1845
Language : English
Type : Recommended, Novel
Recommended by : Soukaina Mkhairi
Estimated time : Around 15 hours.
Main themes : Love, basically. Social Justice, Revenge, Karma, Family, Social classes, Human bonds, Human condition ..
Recommended for : Anyone who'd appreciate a love story with many subplots and many characters and great development.
The book in a few words : The story of two houses bound by space and time, and two families bound by love and hatred.
The synopsis : Mr. Lockwood occupies a new house, lone and isolated from human interaction. The little contact he had with the household of Wuthering Heights made him only curious of the story and history of the family and the place. Through the eyes and words of Nelly, the story unfolds ..


The Rating : Excellent 9/10  


The Review :

I'd start with a general complaint, maybe the only one I have in regard of this book : It is long, for a novel (said the guy who wanted to read The Brothers Karamazov). This fact coupled with my short attention span (that I'm not to be blamed for) and my relatively slow reading speed made me read the book in intervals, sometimes too long to keep the momentum of the action (if there were one) going. I had to regret that while seating 8 hours reading the second half of it at one take, in the unholy tiredness of this summer. As a result to that I made a resolution that I won't read any longs novels, at least for the rest of this month.

That being my reproach, now comes the praise.
The name of the book gave me many false expectations concerning the content of the book, because I, knowing that the book is set in a 19 century context, somehow pictured the heights mentioned in the title as some moral heights, something to do with honor and social hierarchy. It wasn't too long til I discovered that it's the name of a place. A place where many curious things happened and promise to happen.

The first thing that I admired in the classical piece was the choice of narrators : One, Mr. Lockwood, is a complete stranger through whom you, the stranger reader, are presented to every and each character with every detail a curious stranger needs, the other, Nelly, is kind of the opposite in role and knowledge, serves as the timeless witness of no less than three generations of love and loss in the neighbor lands of Yorkshire. She is, in addition to be the actual narrator of the story (on and off quotation marks), is an active, sentient character of the story. She was even granted enough intelligence and clairvoyance by Mrs. Brontë that she almost served as a omniscient narrator, for she was able in many recurrences to read into other characters' thoughts without even being objective. I thought it was a clever change in the narration department that is really hard to achieve without veering into either a loss of credibility as a narrator or being a narration tool (smartly being made interactive throughout the whole story), and the writer made it possible with great mastery.

The text somehow lacked description as it was theoretically all narrated by Nelly orally, and such lavish descriptions would be absurd and out of place if they were frequently presented.
The expressions and countenances of the characters, their accents and their sentiments, however, were perfectly transcribed by the author through the keen eyes of Nelly, leaving too little room to desire.

The language that I expected to be very 19-century-ish (thanks to Persuasion), was thankfully very nimble. The vocabulary was very rich and at times made me stop to retake sentences, but it was by no mean intrusive. The emphasis on verbs and feelings instead of circumstances made the story feel more liquid and more smooth.

In the characters' department, many were presented at the same time because of their studied resemblance, made the novel feel crowded at first. And I felt that this effect was deliberate because once the plot kicks off, you start to reminisce at the early presentations and hints given about every character.
By the second quarter of it, things started to clear out and every branch of every family was proven to be necessary to the growth of the story. It should be credited, however, that throughout the 400 pages of the novel, every character grew (or spoiler alert : died), at least through the eyes of Nelly. The change of states of characters was a beautiful work of improvised psychology, giving a real, odd and sinister depth to every character. There was a unique aspect to most of the character, like Joseph being instantly detestable, Nelly all the way trustworthy and poised to make up for the recklessness of the youngsters, and Heathcliff unearthly evil, and tortured beyond recovery. The part of the story were he was at full frenzy was almost scary!
I enjoyed it thoroughly.

The structure of the tale, however, is what won me over to add this to my 5/5 list.
Instead of a traditional, blooming story line that start with a simple integral description of the status quo that is soon to be disturbed and through successive events lead to a denouement, the story kicks off of an awkward position. The unwelcome narrator was pushed into the midst of a rising chaos, and only through the guidance of Nelly that he could put the pieces together. The non-linear telling of events was brilliant and done brilliantly, and the foreshadowing in the first chapters (Lockwood seeing Catherine's ghost, that was something.), much adding to the puzzlement, was spot-on.

The other element of the narration style was the creation of a vicious timely/karmic circle : History repeated itself in spite of all efforts to steer it or avoid it, and characters reappeared in new skins and new spirits. Catherine was reincarnated in Cathy, Edgar in Linton, Hindley in Heathcliff, Heathcliff in Hareton... The design laid by Brontë was of perfect proportions, and every character has its path to follow, and his aspiration to rise to, under all different motivations that fell into a one dichotomy : Love and Hatred.

Wuthering Heights is a love story tortured by the tempest of Hatred, or a hatred story blessed by the wind of Love. Either ways, it's a story of human endeavor: Rising and falling from grace, lacking power and being corrupt by it, withering by the sheer emotion of love or shaking under the great weight of guilt, loving and seeking love.


Favorite Character : 
Miss Ellen Dean, or simply Nelly.
At first, it was introduced as a mere storyteller : watchful, prudent and just. She was given a motivation to do so by the presence of Mr. Lockwood, the new owner of the house who needs company and some lines of gossip. Once the story advanced sufficiently, she took on a new role: that of being a character of her own presence. But then, she evolved into this ageless companion that not only lived through three generations but also became a mentor, a person of trust and an authentic event-maker. She was, for pure plot reasons, an easily trusted woman, and by this gift she later on gained an ability to judge both people and their intentions, but did so in a matter that you'll believe.
She was this character that always knew better, she had the necessary wisdom to block all greater evils and soothe out everything else. She was present at every crucial moment in both houses, and yet she kept her loyalty to her job first and the people who she loved second her only priority. She didn't only watch the rumble grow, she was the one, secretly, that pushed them to grow, either by direct effect as it is the case with all the children she reared or indirectly by influencing those one upon entering the life of the rest. She later on became so invested in those characters that her ultimate happiness was to see them tranquil and untroubled.
She was, as I said, doted with a lot of intelligence and wit, allowing her to draw conclusions and make decisions, decisions that her inexperienced, short-tempered masters couldn't take.
She kinda flipped her role as a servant inside-out, and for that she earned the title of the best character in the novel.


Favorite passages : 
"He would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. "

".. but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together."

"He possessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten"

".. so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning."

"It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! "

"his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such grief. In HIS case, I was gratified; and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn't miss this chance of sticking in a dart: his weakness was the only time when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong.'"

"'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!''"

"..And help your own naughty pet and mine. It is not poisoned, though I prepared it. "

"Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction. You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than informing me that such an event would follow." -Awesome.

"It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn landscape lay outside."

"I know he has a bad nature,’ said Catherine: ‘he’s your son. But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff YOU have NOBODY to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You ARE miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? NOBODY loves you NOBODY will cry for you when you die! I wouldn’t be you!’"

"He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just the contrary result."

"‘It is a poor conclusion, is it not?’ he observed, having brooded awhile on the scene he had just witnessed: ‘an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! [..] I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing."

7. The World as I see it

Name : The World as I see it
Writer : Albert Einstein
Publishing year : 1949
Language : English
Type : Non-fiction
How come ? : I've been intending to read this book since a long time, just because, well, it's Einstein and it's how he sees the world. Sounds interesting.
Estimated time : Theoratically about 7 hours, but Gosh I spent way too much time not reading it after starting it. More about that in the review.
Main themes : Random stuff (collected articles and letters written by Einstein at different matters).
Recommended for : Anyone who wants to read random articles written by Einstein that are NOT related to science or relativity by any means.
The book in a few words : Already said it, random stuff.

The synonpsis : The book is a collection of articles and letters written by Einstein regarding many issues.


The Rating : Not bad 6/10

The Review :

Well, this book had me going through a lot of thinking, but NOT about its content .. but about my choice of books. I won't be reading any articles/letter collection any time soon.
The book as a read wasn't bad (hence the 6) but the structure of the book make it not only a tiresome book, but also an annoying one. It's because of the book's lack of cohesion that I stalled reading it (I'd read a couple pages then I go do something else .. it's like reading the 4 page of a journal) and therefore I lagged all my plan of reading this summer. Wrong, wrong choice of books.

The book is, as mentioned a couple times above, the book is not actually a flow of the genius insights about life and meaning and such as I actually expected. I was even tricked by the first pages of the book to believe that the book would be an awesome journey inside a mastermind's mind, only to be driven to boredom by the miscellaneous correspondences Einstein had in his time. It was a nice trick, though.
Okay, the book wasn't that bad (it was boring, though). Einstein, who was a scientific authority back in the day, was unexpectedly considered an authority in everything else! Journalists of the time wouldn't miss a chance to ask him about anything that was trending, and him being a man of large general knowledge (he's no more the science geek I expected him to be) didn't help him at all of losing this notoriety. He, however, conveniently denied his reputation in exemplary modesty. That didn't stop him from making influential comments on every subject he supported such as Zionism (in its social form) or Socialism.

Another "discovery" about this man is how big of a peace-lover he is. Like a third of a book is all about how atrocious War is and how it must be stopped at any price if there is any hope for humanity to flourish. Kind of ironical since he was the one to inspire the Manhattan Project that leaded to pretty much to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and USA becoming a major nuclear threat worldwide. Nice job, Einstein.

The book also lives in the spirit of its time, that being the post WWI world, so many references have been made to the context of letters and attitudes. It is written for the post WWI reader who's ready to be influenced by the opinions of the Great Man of the era. This somehow made it distant from the casual-reader me. I didn't want to read about that bot because I hate history, but because I really hate it.

When the book says "Life", it somehow means it. When I picked up the book as my second non-fiction read, I expected it to be about the philosophical meaning of Life. Contemplation ,remarks and insights from one of Humanity greatest minds. But then what you get is not what you expect, and there you have arguments for socialism, for Zionism and even the reason why Einstein resigned from the German Academy of Science. I seriously couldn't care less about his reasons.

Einstein is a man with a big mind and this mind of him, coupled with his reputation back then and now, made even his plainest ideas worth be written on a book. It's not mind-blowing nor revolutionary book, it's what a man, a "simple" man, thinks of things around him, and no matter how "important", this man is, it's still a one man's take, nothing more. It wasn't even that impressive, especially with the complete lack of order the articles/notes were inserted in.
This books was a mind disappointment.

Joining the idea I started this review with, and after the fiasco reading this book was (I mean I literally couldn't read more than five pages a day because of how disordered it was ... and that set me way behind my plans of reading), I intend to change the change the "format" of reading cycles. Since I started this blog, I made the Novel > Classic > Non-fiction > Recommendation cycle. I turned out fine except the Non-fiction part. I have to read both books by necessity, not by passion, not by will. And so I won't make any conditions of the reads I'll pick up from now on, but I'll try as best as I can to have a mixed bag and not all novels (as I highly suspect I'll end up doing).


Favorite passages : 
All quotes were from the first third of the book. The rest is pretty .. 20-century-ish.

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."

"I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. "

"Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'."

"The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling."

"That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed.", Einstein being a troll.

"War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. ".
Yes, sure Einstein, sure. That's why you've written that letter to Roosevelt.

"He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle."

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms--it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; "

"There we confided our experiences, ambitions, emotions to each other. We both felt that this friendship was not only a blessing because each understood the other, was enriched by him, and found ins him that responsive echo so essential to anybody who is truly alive."
Einstein on his friend Katzenstein. I "awww"-ed at this.

"In order that they may derive consolation from it and--not give a damn for what their teachers tell them or think of them.".
Einstein cursing, relatively cool :D (baad pun).

"What I have to say is nothing new and does not pretend to be anything more than the opinion of an independent and honest man who, unburdened by class or national prejudices, desires nothing but the good of humanity and the most harmonious possible scheme of human existence."
That's the book in a nutshell.

6. The Great Gatsby

Name : The Great Gatsby
Writer : F. Scott Fitzgerald
Publishing year :  1925
Language : English
Type : Classic / Novel
How come ? : When you say "American classic", it's impossible not to bring The Great Gatsby to the table, along with The Catcher in the Rye and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, reflecting each the zeitgeist of their author and his time. Add to that the fact that a DiCaprio movie is coming out as the hundredth (approximately) adaptation of the book, and there you got me interested.
Estimated time : About 7 hours.
Main themes : Decadence, Pursuing dreams (The American Dream), the meaning of Greatness, Family, Love, Money, Merit vs social inheritance, Morality..
Recommended for : The book is really a story, and who doesn't like stories ? It's the story that will appeal especially to people who dream, and people who don't believe in dreaming. It's also a novel of hope and the lack of it, a novel social satire of the time.
Really, it's the kind of book everyone can really (but will not be equally) appreciate.
The book in a few words : The story of a mysterious rich man who rose to Greatness out of the blue, become the man of its time with little to nothing known about him.

The synopsis : After moving to new grounds, Nick couldn't help noticing the huge mansion next to his new property, a mansion always full of life and excitement that belongs to a man with good intentions and unknown past.

The Rating : Excellent 9/10

The Review : 

The only bitter thing about reading this book is that, after being exposed to such greatness in style and story craft, I can no more enjoy "average" books anymore.
With hardly a week distancing this review and the previous one, and as much ridiculous this comparison is, it's imminent how big the difference is between a book and a Great book.
One of the turn-offs of the previous books as I stated was the lack of description in a supposedly post-apocalyptic, futuristic frame of time. If there were any dust of dissatisfaction I might have kept from my last read, this book, The Great Gatsby, blew it with big winds.
When not occupied narrating events, Nick, the narrator/pseudo-protagonist, enjoys describing. And we as readers get to enjoy as much reading those descriptions.
With an incredible gift of writing, Mr. Fitzgerald didn't only garnish his pages with remarkable descriptions of feasts and gowns and faces, he was of such sensitivity that he'd add a random detail to a scene that seems far off expectations yet so ingeniously appropriate, the kind of details that will make you smile if you read the sentence again, thinking of how the hell could his mind manage to integrate such little, rather volatile remarks into the silky flow of the story, and make you all along feel horrible and desperate for lacking such quintessential quality, if you're an aspiring writer (like me, me prior reading this book :v). He gave soul to random aspects of the novel that are otherwise very unneeded and forgettable; Even in the lavishly extravagant parties at Gatsby's, Nick would at times notice a quirk that would make a rather boring listing of names a true object of appreciation (When reading Persuasion, one the things I didn't like was the overflow of named faceless characters, or those people who are just in for one second and you're supposed to forget about them without asking why the author bothered giving them names in the first place..) .. In Gatsby, you'd find sentences like  "We were sitting at a table with a man of about my age and a rowdy little girl who gave way upon the slightest provocation to uncontrollable laughter." I just love to imagine how he came up with her existence, or even better "[long list of invited people] ..  and Edgar Beaver, whose hair they say turned cotton-white one winter afternoon for no good reason at all." .. I was like "what xD ?". It hits you when you least see it coming, and you can't help enjoying it.
The use of language is probably The Great Gatsby's sweet spot. Mr. Fitzgerald has a gift of manipulating many words and meanings into one delicious chicken soup. The description were at times just jaw-dropping (Daisy's singing, the Valley of Ashes, and then, Gatsby's smile. I reread it like 14 times), with a unique ability to use words out of their universes and pull off a magnificent rendition of meanings, images and metaphors. When blocks of building become slices of a big white cake, the lights get the ability to whisper, the moonlight becomes wet and colors are used to describe things that colors usually don't describe, you know you're in for something special, something unique (more of his tasteful sense of description in the "favorite passages" section, in which I would have gladly copied half of the book, honestly).
To create an amazing atmosphere, the author didn't have to keep on writing elongated, overly-polished paragraphs. From time to time he'd use very short sentences that would just step up and out and give a very fresh, welcomed feeling of liveliness. "She looked at me and laughed pointlessly.". Such a short, perfect sentence.
The novel isn't event-charged and thus the author had to make the jumps between an event and the following (ellipses), sometimes even in the same chapter, yet they were so comfortable that you'll hardly notice. This is also a proof of the author's high mastery of storytelling : the narration never gets boring, and that's a hard thing to say in general. More points to Mr. Fitzgerald !
A final note regarding the narrator who sat himself apart since the get-go, reciting the rule his father taught him of reserving judgement. This gives us a quite objective, camera-man kind of character to start with. With a laid-back air, Nick didn't get personal and therefore made what he said reliable, only to fall in the end short of his promise to keep from criticizing as his sage father told him. It was a good change to have a narrator who doesn't get directly implied in the plot and thus creating the illusion of a third person perspective from the eyes of the first person's. 
Then there is the lasting charm of the characters. I liked every individual main character, even the ones made vile because they were brilliantly made so. From the appallingly shallow, beautiful Daisy to quiet, watchful Nick, the novel did best at showing what kind of people lived in that time : "the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired."
Finally, the ending. I kind of wished the ending was more fair and freaking Daisy gets to Jail or get stabbed by her husband or something, but no, Gatsby the self-made man got killed, Wilson the worker became a murderer, Daisy ran away unscrupulously with her stupid, racist, egocentric husband.. It wasn't the ending I wanted, but it was the ending the novel deserved. It's a novel that is supposed to reflect upon an era of the American history and a comment on the now-celebrated american dream : the eternal pursuit of complete happiness can blindside all the other things that equally matter.

All in all, this book is just beautiful.The story, even though not ocean deep, is a very well conceived excuse to set life to those characters, all designed to drive the flow to the ultimate message of the novel that is yet to be decisive. The use of language is only bad because it makes one conscious about the existence of such literal superiority. The witty dialogues, the exquisite descriptions, the ebb and the flow of the story, the death of Gatsby and the cowardliness of everyone whom he tried to get acknowledgment from, is just a sad, perfect mixture.
I didn't give it a 10 or at least a 9.5 for two reasons : The ending that is so bittersweet and as I stated before, felt unbalanced (just because I viewed the story morally), and the relative shortness, I wish there were more digging in his past, maybe some subplots, just anything to extend the greatness. 
I also see a lot of hidden potential in the book, things that I would have not fully captured (essentially when I was reading it when I'm half-asleep :v), so there're that too.
Other than that I couldn't find a single flaw to point out. Chapeau bas.

Favorite character : 
Jay Gatsby.
Oddly enough, I was intending to entitle Nick Carraway as such. But only at the end, almost the very end, that it becomes impossible not to feel an urge to be a friend of Gatsby's, or more likely Jimmy. Although a lot of mad american students who have to study The Great Gatsby at school find his "great"-ness highly debatable for amassing money from elicit activities, general shallowness and unidimensionality,  pursuing blindly his dream of recreating the past through gaining possession of the only object that's missing of his collection -Daisy-, it's hard not to like the man's dedication to this sole dream of his. The last chapter was heart-wrenching to say the least, beautifully melancholic and just sad. For a man who was of so much importance and so high manners that were so unlike the inborn snobbishness of the rich-blooded, Gatsby was a rose that only unfolded to prettier shades until it's a bare, motionless core, laying on a coffin, friendless and ill-respected and betrayed by his sole love. The notes on the old book hit me hard on the feels, and so I name Gatsby, the unlikely hero, a Great man.
And I can't put it better than Nick : "‘They’re a rotten crowd,’ I shouted across the lawn. ‘You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.’".

Favorite passages : 
Man, it's hard to select !
The book is really wonderful and all quotable-material. Some of them gain extra relevance when read on the context of the book (actually all of them, but some more than others), and some just stick out, too brilliant to be overlooked.
I went a little liberal about the quantity .. It's just a gorgeous, gorgeous text.

"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had he advantages that you’ve had.’"

"‘I’ll tell you a family secret,’ she whispered enthusiastically. ‘It’s about the butler’s nose. Do you want to hear about the butler’s nose?’

‘That’s why I came over tonight.’"

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’

"This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air."

‘Doesn't her husband object?’ ‘Wilson? He thinks she goes to see her sister in New York.  

He’s so dumb he doesn't know he’s alive.’. Ironic.

"At 158th Street the cab stopped at one slice in a long white cake of apartment houses."

"Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face."

"His wife was shrill, languid, handsome and horrible."

"Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."

"People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away."

"The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher.". Beautiful structure.

"Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission."

He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it,  that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on YOU with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had  precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at  that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two  over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd." 

.. This is definitely one of the best descriptions I've ever read.

"and for a moment I thought I loved her. But I am slow-thinking and full of interior rules that act as brakes on my desires."

" ‘You sit here and discuss your sports and your young ladies and your——’ He supplied an imaginary noun with another wave of his hand."

"For a while these reveries provided an outlet for his imagination; they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world  was founded securely on a fairy’s wing."

"Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air."

"There was dancing now on the canvas in the garden, old men pursuing young girls backward in eternal graceless circles.". Graceless circles, enough said.

"‘What are you doing?’ I inquired.

‘Just standing here, old sport.’

Somehow, that seemed a despicable occupation."

"No wasting time at Shafters or [a name, indecipherable]

No more smokeing or chewing

Bath every other day

Read one improving book or magazine per week

Save $5.00 [crossed out] $3.00 per week

Be better to parents"

Hard not to love Gatz after this.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther…. And one fine morning—

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

5. Divergent

Name : Divergent
Writer : Veronica Roth
Publishing year :  2012
Language : English
Type :  Novel, Bestseller
How come ? : I marked it as "to read" back in the Hunger Games era when the comparison between the books was too common on forums and websites. It resurfaced however when the actress cast to play the heroine Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) was cast to play Hazel Grace from TFioS. Since I'm going to watch both movies anyway (after the Hunger Games movie success, I highly suspect that Divergent is set to be a big blockbuster, and Shailene is set to be the next Jennifer Lawrence maybe ? Maybe). So I might as well read the book before the movie is released, that is in 2014, just to give myself enough time to forget it so as not to repeat the Hunger Games movie tragedy.
Must. Not. Read. Books. Days. Before. The. Movie's. Release Date.
Estimated time : Around 12 hours.
Main themes : Post-apocalyptic World, Romance, War, Family, Sense of belonging.
Recommended for : Sci-fi fans (although the book isn't exactly sci-fi), people who loved Hunger Games/hated Hunger Games/Didn't read Hunger Games, someone with 12 hours to spare on reading another post-apocalyptic novel.
The book in a few words : The adventure of a girl who got entangled in issues bigger than her as she tried to balance out her inherent anomaly, her romantic feelings and her sense of belonging.
The synopsis : In a post-apocalyptic world, the city of Chicago is divided into Factions : Tribes or guilds that lace people with one of the five common tendencies : Selflessness, Curiosity, Courage, Honesty or Sociability. Beatrice is 16 years-old girl who was born and raised in Abnegation, the faction of the Selfless. She, however, never felt as selfless as she is expected to be. She struggled to fit in but it was clearly impossible for her to dissimulate in the community of grey and self-denial. The Faction Choosing Ceremony approaches, and the choice she'll make will decide her life.


The Rating : Not Bad 6.5/10

The Review :

It's impossible to start without mentioning the HIGH similarity between this work and the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Not only because of the general feeling of reminiscence the novel invokes while reading it, but also because once the comparison is stricken, you can obviously see who gets all the superlatives.
So, Beatrice (or later, Tris) is a 16 years old young girl born in a post-apocalyptic USA where she gets through trouble because she is not like other girls from her faction and will get involved in political issues that are far bigger than her little worries. She must fight the evil that is the Erudite faction, hand in hand with Four, her love interest. I can use the same sentence to describe (Spoiler Alert) The Hunger Games just by replacing faction with district and Erudite with Capitol. The novel makes little effort to distinguish itself in the genre, and when it does, I didn't like it. Let me explain.
One of the main delights of reading Sci-fi is getting to imagine a world far beyond our mundane reality, where was we know and what what's possible is no limit to trance an extraordinary storyline. Divergent, however, takes so little from this bless, and implements too little Sci-fi elements that makes it lingers somewhere between the present as we know it and the future as we expect it to be, which leaves a lot to be desired. There is much room for possible improvement but Divergent doesn't seem to bother exploiting it.
What's more, the pace of the story which some find exciting and absorbing, is quite unstable : dull at times, very charged at others. I know it's supposed to be that way (it's neither pure action nor pure narration), but the novel seeks comfort in less fevered scenes that sometimes don't quite fit in the narrative logic, and I even daresay some parts were kind of unnecessary. They only made the work longer, and thus boring at times.
My other complaint is the female narrator. Before I get shot by a thousand (?) feminists, my complaint isn't about the use of a female voice narrator, actually Hazel Grace, the other girl that Shailene will play, is a perfect example of what a narrator girl should be like (The author is, however, a man). My complaint is the blatant oxymoron of what the author imagined the heroine to be like and how it ended being. She was supposed to be a "tough" girl with a rather flat girly side (illustrated by this quote from the book "Can you be a girl for a few seconds ?" ) which we perfectly understand as Tris isn't your typical silly girl, but as soon as the romantic side explored, we see a stereotypical girl act girly whenever Four is around. Although the author tries to redeem the previous image of Tris later on, she just doesn't seem real to me anymore. But I'm wondering : Is that just her fate ? The same things weirdly arrived to (spoiler alert) Katniss once the third book picked up pace, Katniss being the kind of girl I wanted it to be in the first two books. Maybe Mrs. Roth just accelerated the process and destroyed my little fantasy of Tris being actually a Badass Girl. She even seemed inconsistent at times as a character : She instantly recognized Al's feelings for her (Al being another contradictory character), but she took WAY too much time (around halfway through the book) to figure out that Four feels the same for her, although any reader would have concluded by that time that they are both falling in a sloppy love story that the author will unwisely focus on the second half of the book. I just kept reading with a sadness growing me while I watch all my expectations hammered by the merciless ordinarily and the lack of subtlety of the narration. It felt unadorned and plain, sloppy. And of course the final blow was when the effect of the serum was annulled by .. the power of love ? OH COM"OOOOOON. That's .. that's .. that's Twilight.
One more thing : Some expressions are irritatingly repeated throughout the book, leaving the bare style even more exposed. Tris "bites her lips" in every chapter at least two times, and when she looks at someone's eyes, they always "look like dark pits". Also, when she cries, "her eyes burn", and that was uncomfortably repeated in every scene involving crying, almost crying, and feeling like crying. The prize of the the least impressing style this year goes to .... Veronica Roth.
Those were the bad points that Divergent scores, but since I gave it 6.5 it means it has some shiny bits scattered along the 150 pages. One is definitely the -at times- witty dialogue, I even chuckled at some parts. So there go some deserved credit to Mrs Veronica.
The premise of the book and the first part is actually good (although SO reminiscent of The Hunger Games) and the faction thing is very nicely thought of, I ended up asking myself what faction will I choose, only to end up to the conclusion Four makes : why not all of them ? Foreshadowing, foreshadowing everywhere.
Speaking of foreshadowing, the book is not so smart about keeping its secret hidden, as you can probably guess the next thing to happen (which surprises me since I read everywhere that the book is full of surprises).  I mean, whenever Danger sets around the Dauntless, it pops to my mind that it's her that's talking (meaning she'll stay alive) and there is a second and a third book, means he'll stay alive :p The rest of the characters were cold-bloodedly killed by Veronica because she didn't like them or didn't know what to do with them.
My last thought is that the book could have been better in many ways, at least at quilting the holes in the narratio, characters and pace, I mean just by the ideas that were in, and more effort by the author to actually add description to her novel, maybe it would have felt better. I still have my hopes at the move, though, the book is perfectly set for such medium, and I hope the set designers would put more effort to illustrate the world and animate the characters that Veronica Roth neglectfully briught to life to the boo that's trying too hard to be the next Hunger Games. (Both books share a 4.4/5 rating on Goodreads, what the world had come to ..).


Favorite character : 
All the characters weren't developed well (except Tris which unnaturally transformed as the book went on) so it's hard to have any special appreciation for one of them really. But I'll go with Christina just because she got most of the good lines in the book. She was made selfish by the author (she didn't have to make her take the flag, I thought).
More on the quotes part :p


Favorite passages : 
The book isn't sharply written. The language isn't especially beautiful and the only thing that deserves a shout-out is the rare use of sarcasm in the book. Some sentences were good, but most of the work seemed like someone who tells you what happened to him last week.


"Leaving us with Eric is like hiring a babysitter who spend his time sharpening knives"

"He smiles at me. I wonder if throwing up at him will do me any good"

"Awkwardness aside, it is nice to be liked."

""You weren't allowed to have pets ?" Christina demands, smacking the table with her palm. "Why not ?"
"Because they're illogical," Will says matter-of-factly. "What's the point of providing food and shelter for an animal that just soils your furniture, makes your home smell bad, and ultimately dies ?""

"They don't want you to act in a certain way. They want you to think in a certain way. So you're easy to understand. So you won't pose a  threat to them"

""Hey now," says Christina, brushing Will's shoulder with her finger. "This is supposed to be a lighthearted session of symbolic document destruction, not a political debate""

"I never used to understand why people bothered to hold hands as they walked, but then he runs one of his fingertips down my palm, and I shiver and understand it completely."

""Like you don't want to know what his fears are. he acts so tough that he's probably afraid of marshmallow and really bright sunshines or something. Overcompensating""

"She sets her hands on my shoulders. "Can you be a girl for a few seconds ?"
"I'm always a girl." I frown.
"You know what I mean. Like a silly, annoying girl."
I twirl my hair around my finger. "Kay."" : This one actually got me.

4. Persuaion

Name : Persuasion
Writer : Jane Austen
Publishing year :  1817
Language : English
Type : Recommended, Novel
Recommended by : Hala El Alami.
Estimated time : about 8 hours.
Main themes : Social Classes, love and duty, Fortune and Value, Marriage, Merit, Persuasion (or Personal choice vs. Taking advice).
Recommended for : Anyone who wants to read a classical love story spiced up with some critique of the society.
The book in a few words : The struggles of an young adult woman to compromise between the matters of her heart, her family and her society.
The synopsis : When love, duty, family, honor, advice and regret intertwine, the priorities entangle, and the mind becomes to uncertain of guide to follow.


The Rating : Great 8/10  

The Review :

It's the first time for me to read a 19th century classical literature work, which is easily different from anything I read so far.
The book is written is an expectedly different style, which was by far my favorite part of the reading experience. Reading an English classic was always on my to-do list (I was thinking more of a Shakespearean work to be initiated to English classics but I wouldn't say no when the order I restrained myself to lead me to read this before), and I must say it's a pleasant sensation. I must confess that the understanding ratio for this reading was clearly lower than my usual (I didn't actually measure it but I'd say 80%) but it didn't lower anyhow my enjoyment ratio. I intend therefore to read more classics, but since they require more concentration to fully understand, I'll content myself to contemporary classics until summer !
So yeah, language was the thing I first noticed. The unfamiliar structures (to me) and the unique style of writing and narrating made for the lack of any action in the novel, which is something I would reproach.
The other thing that stands out in the caricaturistic and unnuanced portrayal of characters. Almost every characters fits perfectly a stereotype of the upper-class English society of the 19th century. With little focus on the depth and the growth of secondary characters, Austen did highlight the uniqueness of the main character (Anne) amidst the undefined, mundane, trivial rest of the actors while also using them for specific ends. The main focus was clearly on Anne and her evolution from a yielding, easily-persuaded character to a more mature, self-conscious one, which meant it was really hard to care for any other character except the main ones.
The book also critiques (but not fully) the idea of social hierarchy through the eyes of Anne who started to see the honor in self-conducting and wholesomeness of mind and manners rather than an mere inheritance that didn't stop her father and sister Elizabeth to be excessively vain and ultimately insignificant.
Anne nonetheless had a high sense of honor and some attachment to materialistic aspect of being of noble inheritance. She was saddened upon relinquishing the propriety to people of less prominent origins and pitied her father and sister for not living to the requirements of their class.
That being said, I don't consider 19th century love stories my cup of coffee (especially with an ending so expected and so morale-oriented like Persuasion's), which made me wonder at times while reading "Why am I reading this ?". Stories that are centered around the struggle of the protagonist to find true love don't really appeal to me ESPECIALLY if the protagonist in question is an upper-class girl with issues regarding honor and social image. I really pictured it at times like a Classic version of "First world problems" memes. I know that's exactly what Romantic fiction is all about (and I'm expecting even more of this when I'll start reading Shakespeare's), but I don't think that's the thing for me. I couldn't enjoy the "issues" dealt with in the novel because they seems too distant and unrelatabe.
All in all, the book was a good read because of its language and the cool observations Anne makes at times, but other that that I find it hard to get fascinated by the prevalence of Love and integrity over Time and ill intentions while the big world we are living in is sinking in a black ocean of universal problems transcending the individuals and their vainglorious, mirror-obsessed parents. (Yeah yeah I know, that's what romantic novels are meant to be for but I don't know why would anyone be interested in reading nobles having upper-class problems .. Sorry Hala :v).


Favorite passages : 
I didn't read the book from a PDF so I couldn't copy the passages I liked, but I still remember the last sentence of the before-last chapter and the only sentence I could relate to in the whole thing :

"I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

Intentional tease : "A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world."

3. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus

Name : Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus
Writer : John Gray
Publishing year :  1992
Language : English
Type : Non-fiction
How come ? : It's just a book that always existed in my to-read list. I don't remember why I added it to my list but anyway, it's one of the most read non-fiction books of all times.
Estimated time : 6 hours.
Main themes : Relationships of Men and Women.
Recommended for : Couples of stereotypical profiles. People who had to choose between reading this and 50 shades of Grey.
The book in a few words : The solution of all couple problems in one book. Or something like that.

The synonpsis : How to explain the wide difference between men and women in every aspect of life ? How come all men and women conform to a set of general concepts (aka stereotypes) that make very generalization possible ? The answer lays here in the book : if we thought of men and women as two different races, everything becomes clear and understandable, doesn't it ?

The Rating : Mediocre 5/10

The Review : 

What to expect from a book that sold millions of copies worldwide and allegedly helped millions of couples to overcome their relationship problems ? Absolutely nothing.
I, for starter, had no idea what the book is about and how it is written. I knew it dealt with the differences between genders (blatantly told by the title), and since it's a book that I heard of when I was still little, it must have been/be famous and good. Well I don't think it is.
Let me get one thing out of the way : I didn't read the entire book. When I said I'll read a book every week, I definitely didn't have in mind this ... kind of books. So although I tried, I couldn't finish it. (to make up for this, I'll read two books next week or something).
Now let the rant begin !
Let's talk about reason #1 I couldn't finish the book : WHY DO YOU, JOHN, REPEAT THE SAME IDEA 33 TIMES ? I know that if he didn't, the size of the book would have diminished considerably (Maybe then I would have read it entirely, maybe). But repeating one freaking idea for SEVEN PAGES is either a work of an idiot or a work addressed to an idiot, which is bad either ways.
Millions of copies have been sold, millions.
Another thing that especially bugged me was the fact that the book is SELLING COMMON SENSE ! I mean telling men to "listen to their wives instead of ignoring them" and telling women to "talk less when their husbands seem focused on a problem" isn't exactly a revolutionary idea for me. My world wasn't shaken by this idea. My life didn't change after reading that. It's just awful.
I mean for people who don't realize that "listening to their partners while they're talking and expressing love to them is good", they should not be reading this book, so I would highly suggest a book that's called "Common Sense for everyone" that I myself will write, and become a best-selling author. I can even borrow some sentences from this book like "Understanding, trust, compassion, acceptance, and support are the solution, not blaming our partners". I know, total hit.
What's worse than selling common sense is selling disinformation.
If it wasn't thanks to this book, I wouldn't have known that I as a man, all I care for is solving problems and misinterpreting women. Moreover, men are by nature selfish, egocentric and achievement-oriented, they prioritize success over love, and solving problems over having human relationships. I learnt also that women are on the other hand selfless, love-oriented and think of socialization and connections as their reason of being. I was an ignorant, and this book opened my freaking eyes.
And of course, for every feminist out there who fight for equality, in addition to what preceded, Mr. Gray tells us that "We have forgotten that men and women are supposed to be different". That's right. Even if you want to argue, Mr. Gray brilliantly points out ever brilliantly that women talk a lot and need to be "cherished and saved" while men don't express themselves and need on the other hand to help and save their princesses from Planet Venus. After all, and like the book sharply illustrates, if it wasn't for men looking at the beauty of Women of Venus through the Telescope they invented, they weren't be motivated to build spaceships to come and complete them. Women on the other hand didn't build anything, they just felt that there are some "wonderful creatures" that will come and help them with "strength and competence", so they went shopping to prepare for this visit. Gender stereotypes IN YO' FACES Y'ALL ! Nothing is better in relationships literature than making all the generalization out there. And Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus does them all.
One more thing, the book actually doesn't make ANY scientific reference .. Psychology, physiology, sociology, anthropology .. they might seem to you as a must to write a rigorous book about gender differences and relationships within society, but Mr. Gray can't but to prove you wrong, wrong, wrong. His personal ideas are superior, and thus a science by their own merit. He even invented the "Venusian/Martian Phrase Dictionary" .. which is a brilliant method to understand what women say in a more understandable manner. Who needs the scientific method when he has the Gray methods!
The thing is, I actually gave this book 5/10 rather than some 1/10 or something .. but then again, I have my reasons. One is the the book is actually funny to read, (I don't mean like, funny. I mean you laugh at its often stupid content. The author, him, is as funny as a piece of wood) I got several times surprised of how daring the author is to make reference to some obviously erroneous stereotypes. I also laugh when he, after repeating the idea like twenty times, illustrates it with a "real life case" with names like Mary and Tom. I found that unexpectedly hilarious. Like "before Mary discovered the Martian culture, she used to get mad at Tom for not listening to her. Now that she knows about the secrets of Martians, she no longer talks to Tom when he's in his cave of problem-solving. She's more supportive and more understanding now". I'm pretty sure this book changed the life of Mary and Tom times and times again. It's not that useless after all.
A second thing is that when you read a book so devoid of new ideas, it makes you grateful that the world has more than that to offer, thus it increase your general feeling of happiness, which is a desirable effect of any book (all backwards, but still).
But when I look at it differently, and although I think of myself as a rather odd representative of the Men class (being much less interested in these relationships at my age for one), the book sometimes, weirdly enough, kind of tells the truth. Although maybe most generalizations are false, some of them actually true, and when the book points them out, it's not hard to think of real-life cases that actually fit the description of their respective gender (women that are whinny, men that are absorbed by their work ..). In fact, although the book has no scientific background, it hits the mark at times successfully.
So between the hilariously redundant and the oddly true, the books lingers in the zone of "mediocre". Maybe one day when I'm in the midst of a relationship, I'll read it and I'll understand more my Mary. Or maybe not. Probably not.
I feel sorry that "John + Color Name" reputation has been harmed a bit. To have a poplar name and a color family name doesn't necessarily imply you're a good writer. With all due respect, Mr. John Gray.

Favorite passages : 
I would have copy-pasted the whole thing here, but I don't think it will fit (and there are the copyright issues and stuff) .. So please be contented of these few gems of wisdom (I'll quote only from the beginning because I wasn't motivated enough to do so once I passed the first fifty pages) :


"Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus is a manual for loving relationships in the 1990s."
Face it, you'll never be as straightforward as this guy. Honesty, modesty and what-the-heck-is-that-ty.

"I make many generalizations about men and women in this book."
Thanks goodness you said it yourself.

"They [Men] donʹt read magazines like Psychology Today, Self, or People. They are more concerned with outdoor activities, like hunting, fishing, and racing cars. They are interested m the news, weather, and sports and couldnʹt care less about romance novels and self‐help books. They are more interested in ʺobjectsʺ and ʺthingsʺ rather than people and feelings. Even today on Earth, while women fantasize about romance, men fantasize about powerful cars, faster computers, gadgets, gizmos, and new more powerful technology. Men are preoccupied with the ʺthingsʺ that can help them express power by creating results and achieving their goals."
Wooow. Thanks for defining me, sir John Gray.


"Everything on Venus reflects these values [love, communication, beauty, and relationships]. Rather than building highways and tall buildings, the Venusians are more concerned w th living together in harmony, community, and loving cooperation. Relationships are more important than work and technology. In most ways their world is the opposite of Mars. [..] Venus is covered with parks, organic gardens, shopping centers, and restaurants."

Woooow. Thanks for defining women for me, sir John Gray.


"And for him to feel good about himself he must achieve these goals by himself. Someone else canʹt achieve them for him. Martians pride themselves in doing things all by themselves. Autonomy is a symbol of efficiency,power, and competence."
Defining redundancy.

"[after a couple other examples, this one is my favorite]ʺI want to forget everythingʺ translated into Martian means ʺI want you to know that I love my work and my life but today I am so overwhelmed. I would love to do something really nurturing for myself before I have to be responsible again. Would you ask me ʹWhatʹs the matter?ʹ and then listen with empathy without offering any solutions? I just want to feel you understanding the pressures I feel. It would make me feel so much better. It helps me to relax. Tomorrow I will get back to being responsible and handling things.ʺ"
I think I have some learning to do.