on the wrong side of the outside

Okay, to be honest, the first thing I thought when I got this book was “woah this is thin!” And by that I mean, like, novella thin and nothing like the you-know-who girls at school who think they’re supermodels. Then I thought “great, I can just get this over and done with quick”. Y’know, like when a boy asks you out and you go “what is it?” and he says “oh, just a soy milkshake” and you think “Guess it won’t take more than an hour. Fine.” You also think “why soy”? but ANYWAY back to the book….

I thought I wouldn’t like this novel. It involves a grown man, the death of his mother and politics and extenshia….existensionlis…*philosophy stuff* - none of the stuff I can relate to at all. But it’s a thin book, I was bored, so I thought I’d take it down to the grass by the lake and maybe the boys might catch me reading a smart book and think “wow, brains and hotness, ima ask her to the ball.”

After I finished this book I was like I LOVE THIS BOOK!

Firstly, I like how it has MOTHER ISSUES. We don’t get to meet Meursault’s mum, we find out about the same time as he does that she has died. And that’s when things start to go wrong. Everyone expects him to be all criez, but instead Meursault acts completely normal and that’s when ppl start to think he’s a bad person. Okay, I think I can safely say that everyone at one time or another has had a complex relationship with their mum and if something really horrible happens… well I can understand that ppl will act differently. Some ppl are good at expressing their feelings and some pple aren’t. Build a bridge. It doesn’t mean they don’t care. Meursault goes into some sort of post-traumatic stress and goes numb. So even tho everyone is like “what’s this dudes’ problem?”, I felt sorry for him.

Then there’s a MURDER. Meursault gets invited to some sort of adult schoolies at this place by the ocean and due to a really bad chain of events, ends up killing someone at the beach. So he has to go to jail and everyone tries to get him to criez some more and say he regretted it, but the dude is like, "I didn’t know the person, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind and it just happened – what do you want me to say?” I am not advocating murder, but it’s not like he’s an “evil” person. Some bad stuff went down and as a reader you are asked the Q – okay so this guy is a villain. Do you condemn him or do you think you can understand him better than that?

So that is, like, Existentialism (see I can spell it) which basically is “we exist, crap happens and sometimes there’s no meaning to life”. So like wow, I learnt something. It really got me thinking afterwards. Like how someone who just tells the truth gets blasted by society. I mean how many times have I told someone that their outfit looks awful (cos it does) and I get not thanks? In fact, everyone hates me for it. I thought Meursault was brave in the end for telling the truth. I felt bad for the dude that died, but I felt bad for Meursault too. He wasn’t going to say things that weren’t true for him.

I wanted to re-read some parts again and I even got annoyed when some boy from school interrupted me and I just thought “hey buddy, there’s more to life than wasting my time flirting with you”. So yeah, this one will bend your brain. I highly recommend. FB me if you read it too.

tonight i'm gonna party like it's 1984

Okay, Nineteen Eighty-Four was actually written in 1949 and it was supposed to be about the future. Well I guess when Prince sung about partying in 1999 and Silverchair sung about the year 2000 little did they know that today, it's like, soooo ten years ago.

So in alternate-future 1984, instead of people wearing fluro colours, lace gloves and permed hair and dancing to carefree eighties music, the fashion is less interesting and life is REALLY REALLY SERIOUS AND STRICT. Just like my high school. It gives off the appearance it's all progressive and free-choice, but in fact if you so much as put your pinkie toe out of line - BAM! Big Brother (aka the principal) or some sniveling traitor with some massive grudge, gets you. So I can relate to Nineteen Eighty-Four.

I can also relate to how there's a hierarchy with the Inner Party (the Populars and High-Achievers), the Outer Party (I reckon me and my group would be here) and the Proles at the bottom (the Normals and everyone else). The bullying goes top down and also inside your own group (boy do I know about that).

So I like all that stuff. But then I kinda have problems with the main characters. First there's Winston. He's so wet that he makes rain look dry. His idea of trying to rebel against Big Brother is to bash BB in his diary. Yeah Winston. Good One. Then there's Julia. Who's part of some Purity Club, but in fact she hooks up so regularly she makes my friend Marianne seem like a nun. One day Julia passes a love note to Winston who for no reason falls in love with her and they try to defy Big Brother by trying to hook up as many times as possible.

Now I query why my English Teach Mr Steele gave me this book cos obviously it sends a pretty bad message. I mean, if Winston and Julia spent their time trying to, like, bring BB down, I would have understood, but I spent the entire novel hoping they would hurry up and get caught. Their endless smooching annoyed me and seriously, I realised how much I wanted to be in the Inner Party just so I could smack them myself and then demand they do some hardcore canteen duty.

Verdict: lame love story aside, everything else is pretty good. Who would have thought Orwell would have predicted Big Brother the TV series?

dramatic pic of a dramatic popular peep

My English teacher Mr Steele has been trying to get me to read this one for ages and I’m like, “dude this is like 100 years old”, no thanks. And Oscar Wilde? Is he kinda like Matt Preston from Master Chef? But he gave me a copy anyway and I went to a health spa and while I was waiting for my facemask to work, I thought hey lemme give it a shot then. I quickly discovered it has cute boys and like, very DRAMATIC DEATHS WITH HANGING QUESTION MARKS LIKE THIS: ????? So it isn’t totes bad after all.

Anyway, the story is about this one Popular called Dorian Gray, a babe with curly blond locks and blue eyes. It proves my theory that even 100 years ago, Jocks still rocked the schoolyard. He has this one friend Basil who is all serious and artistic and a painter and this other friend Lord Henry who seriously has his super snark on. Since they are all rich, all they do is lounge around all day having pseudo-deep conversations and partying at night. Which OMG, reminds me of so so many ppl around here.

Basil paints Dorian this one time and it turns out extra gorgeous and Dorian goes “oh yeah, if only I could look like this forever and the picture would like grow old.” Due to some Freaky Friday type switchero, Dorian becomes the picture and the picture becomes him. So then Dorian becomes really debauched and stuff cos no matter what he does, he stays all innocent looking cos the picture gets all evil for him. The only problem is that his life spirals out of control and all sort of wrong starts to go down. Dorian thinks “well, ah, maybe this isn’t such a good idea guise…”, but is it too late?

I would recommend this book to, like, all the Goths and Emos. Y’know, all the boys who like to wear eyeliner and their girlfriend’s black jeans and have super angst. I don’t personally care for all the descriptions of how debauched Dorian got, I mean, seriously – a little less conversation, a little more action? But I do like how it’s pretty creepy, Lord Henry is a bigger bit** than Marianne and the ending is a kicker (no spoilers from me, you will have to read it urself).