Princess Book Review

The title Princess, though seemingly enticing and safe, is rather the opposite and tells a tale of brutal oppression that females of the Muslim faith endure on a daily basis.  Sultana, a feisty Princess of the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia whose life this biography revolves around, secretly indulges her audience in the truth of what it is like to grow up and live in the walls of a beautiful palace that more closely resembles a jail of discouragement and sacrifice.  Through Sultana’s gripping story one can begin to see clearly what the Muslim traditions of Saudi Arabia represent and how the women are cruelly controlled in a world where male dominance is the strictly followed word of Allah (God).

Princess is written by Jean P. Sasson (Sultana’s American friend) to keep the real identity of Sultana a secret so she is not punished by the males in her family or society.  The book starts in childhood and follows Sultana through motherhood.  Although this book mainly focuses on her Royal Family, the book also strips away the cloak of secrecy shrouding the truths of some of the most frightening stories ever to be revealed from women in the midst of it all.

While remaining informative and compelling, this novel also manages to be an incredibly easy read because of the fact that the author does not waste her words and tells things as they are.  The story was so crushing and I was flabbergasted at the way the women were treated having grown up with our revered freedom given to every American citizen (male or female).  The author bluntly states by the seventh page, “And so it comes to be that women in my land are ignored by their father, scorned by their brothers, and abused by their husbands” (7).  The audience of this book sees this sad fact to be true as Sultana shares her story of life as a slave to men starting with a story about her only brother, Ali.  Ali, because he is a male, gets everything he could ever possibly want. Even if he does something awful, his sisters are most always the scapegoats for his wrongdoings.  This proves to be the case as a kind Pakistani cook grants a young Sultana with a shiny apple and after refusing to hand it over to her brother, he unthinkingly slaps her to the ground.  Even after Sultana explains that it was her apple to begin with, her father lashes out with harsh punishments by taking away all her toys and allowing Ali to control what she eats.  By appealing to the readers through her use of pathos by telling stories such as these, Sasson is undeniably triggering emotions and therefore, hoping to stick in the minds of her audience long after she is finished saying what she has to say.  She wants to make her point very clear, and with such heart wrenching matter, she is easily able to do so. 

This book also ignites and uncovers the inner woman’s rights activist in any reader with a compassionate heart.  As is the Muslim tradition, after menstruation begins, the new woman is forced to veil so that she is seen as one who is worthy and ready to be a wife.  Sultana states, “Life changed quickly.  I entered the souq area as an individual bursting with life, my face expressing my emotions to the world.  I left the shopping area covered from head to toe, a faceless creature in black” (79).  The fact that women must cover their faces seems demeaning especially when they are forced to go out into the burning sun with a black veil that is absorbing every ray of heat.  Their male counterparts, on the other hand, breeze through life in whatever garments they feel will be most comfortable for them while forcing their women to drown in a sea of black.  The mistreatment doesn’t stop there, but is rather never-ending and involves polygamy, abuse (mentally, emotionally, physically, and sexually), and webs of complex lies and hatred.  As Sultana’s philosophic side comes out, she has Sasson reveal that, “By treating women as slaves, as property, men have made themselves as unhappy as the women they rule, and have made love and true companionship unattainable to both sexes” (7).

There is nothing that is too shameful for Sasson to write about and through this blunt narrative we begin to see Sultana as one who longs to be free, but never will.  Her luckless story is one that can only be described as a tragedy.  This book is an absolute must-read because it is fast-moving, raw, and crafted to perfection.  It sheds light on the true fault of men is their need for dominion over women and only when the cycle of gender slavery ends can the world truly succeed.  Women, as we see in countries such as America, are just as good as men.  They are smart, brilliant human beings and in my thoughts, God (if there is such a force or being) would never subject the females of the world to be subservient to males.  This kind of hatred needs to end, but Sultana says that we, as free women, make it worse, so the question really is: if this can be fixed, how?       

The Dark Side of Eminem

"The Dark Side of Eminem" contains Eminem's life during his beginning, his collapse, his re-birth, and his fulfillment of his prophecy of being a rap king. This book describes all of Eminem's significant life events that occurred and how these life long memories shaped him to be the talented musician he is. As the reader, you realize the amount of racial violence and descrimination, verbal and physical abuse, and hardships that Marshall Mathers had to suffer through. All of the these awful experiences is what fuels and creates Marshall to be the type of angry white trash superstar he is. The terrible occurrences is known as "The Dark Side Of Eminem". Born into an unstable, constantly moving home Eminem grew up with only his mother and as a child, he was always moving homes to stay with family members, Debbie's (Marshall's mom) boyfriends, or any other friends that would take the single mother and her baby under their roof. This book, in detail, explains to it's audience how Eminem's childhood contributed to the creation of his forever angry rhyming mind. The first chapter "Ground Zero", talks about how the area where he grew up was extremely racist, violent, crime-filled, and eighty percent African American. The book says how his hometown Detroit was a perfect location to raise a fatherless, angry, bullied, abused, poor, white trash honkey rap superstar."Since 1950, its population has shrunk my a million. Over 10,000 houses and 60,000 lots stand empty. A third of its citizens are beneath the poverty line. Many live in zones of hardcore unemployment, prospectless. In the Seventies and the Eighties, when the race lines of other American cities blurred, Detroit's hardened. It was de-industrialized, dead-beat. 8 Mile Road was the scar that showed its character." This book shows Eminem's experiences of being a toddler and adolescent in this dangerous and destroyed city is what had a contribution to his corrupted mind. With countless interviews and song-lyrics by Eminem, "The Dark Side Of Eminem" explains how each life-event helped fuel Eminem's want for revenge and constant search for a way out. This is a biography on the painful, the tough, and the battered and bruised side of Marshall Mathers, the dark side. It's a giant explanation on how this man built up enough drive and fuel to conquer all the struggles and challenges that have faced him through out his life. I recommend this book to anyone how enjoys to read about an underdog and his climb to the top of the mountain of success. This is all the evil, negative occurrences that Marshall Mathers took part in or had to suffer through, the road to his dream of success.

The Hot Zone Book Review-Davis

The Hot Zone

Book Review

Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone tells one of the most horrifying stories known to the world as of 1976.  Richard Preston’s depiction of the real world events set The Hot Zone aside from any other non-fiction work.  Through his own second-hand accounts, Preston creates a seemingly fake horror that grows as the story carries along in his four part work.  Preston opens the journey with the life and travels of a man by the pseudonym of Charles Monet, a Frenchman residing in Uganda who is presented to be the original contractee of Ebolavirus, the hot virus that is known now as one of the most deadly and infectious still to this day.  Post contraction of the virus in what is thought to be from the deep rainforest of central Africa, Charles Monet is followed by plane and taxi only to reveal that this unknown illness kills him within days, as well as other doctors and nurses that study and tend to his gross illness.

The opening events of the virus’s disgustingly depicted engulfment of the Frenchman plant the groundwork for the evolving suspense and mystery of the virus unknown to the world at the time.  Richard Preston builds off of the virus’s epicenter in the microcosm of central Africa to reveal the world’s newest medical research phenomenon.  As this account is set in the era of the catastrophic AIDS breakout, it portrays the reality of the little medical knowledge the world had about viruses that are born within the rain forests of  central Africa.  This background sets so much suspense and curiosity in the reader’s mind, it almost pushes the reader to learn more.  Preston uses his accounts with the characters behind the story to map the scientific and medical advancements that bring this book to life.  As the virus multiplies, so does the setting.  Preston takes the reader across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, where samples of the virus infected blood of Doctor Shem Musoke (Monet’s doctor) were sent for testing.

Preston leads the remainder of the story through more micro outbreaks of the virus in Africa alongside the fatally dangerous research and testing of the hot virus on monkeys in the United States, which leads a team of scientists to travel to the virus infested rain forest of Uganda to find where the virus comes from.  Through each and every page, Preston continues to hold the reader by sheer horror and suspense, not knowing what will happen at the turn of the next page.  Although The Hot Zone is a non-fictional read, the way in which Preston exemplifies the real life terrifying events makes it seem far more made up than anything that could actually occur in real life.

Richard Preston’s The Hot Zone is a must read thriller that will not only tell the shockingly gruesome story of the filovirus Ebola Zaire, but it will leave your mind questioning the significance of human existence in a world exposed to the very unknown dangers of mother nature.

I believe in Plants.

I believe plants nourish, heal, grow, blossom, make people happy. Plants promote good vibes. I believe plants humble, the take only sunlight and water for energy and give so much more. I rely on and consume plants everyday to make me healthy therefore make me happy. Plants are a life form at its purest, with spiritual effects upon people as well as calming and stress-reducing. I believe in the power of plants.

Blink!

Blink

Malcolm Gladwell started off as a journalist and published his first book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference, in the year 2000. It was a hit and made Gladwell a popular lecturer. In 2005, he published his second book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. This book really caught my eye and from cover to cover, it was a really easy, informational read.

The title says it all. This is a book about a collection of studies done over a period of two years and is basically about first impressions, intuition, and underlying keys that can all be decoded with amazing accuracy. The key is deciding what information to hold on to, and what information to get rid of. Gladwell discusses “thin-slicing”, or rapid cognition, which is the focus of his book. Thin-slicing is the ability to decide what is really important on the spot, and how decisions that are made in the blink of an eye can be just as good as well thought out ones. He tells many stories about his experiences, other people’s experiences, and studies done about “thin-slicing”.

The way Gladwell writes is intriguing. He tells stories in pieces, so that the reader has to keep reading to find out what happens. At the end of each story he comes to a conclusion as to why thin-slicing did or didn’t work and the accuracy of the method used or the study done. I learned so much about the power of decision-making and what you can tell about a person or situation in the blink of an eye. In this book, Gladwell describes how a coach can tell if an athlete will double-fault before they even walk on the court, how artists can pick out an identical fake without any information about the piece, and how long a relationship will last with only three minutes of observations and amazing accuracy.

There is an explanation for why everything in the corporate world is the way it is, or why military personnel can discover where in the world certain hidden bases are, or what to signs to realize in something as serious as an intimate relationship, or as common as a business relation with your local car dealership. Facial expressions, speech recognition and even our unknown unconscious bias play a part in every decision we make, whether it’s hasty or not. This book was a quick and informational read. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in psychology or just a curiosity about understanding how the world works a little better. Right or wrong, there is a key to why things are the way they are, and in Blink, Malcolm Gladwell reveals all the secrets. I look forward to reading more of his books.

Davis Believes This...So YOU shall as well also too believe this

Why are we lead to believe that we need to WORK in an office, and fill a career that is found only to be lucrative in terms of tangible income?  This makes absolutely no sense to me.  These people who are living from the surroundings of the stacks of paper, staplers, and manilla folders of their cubicles are not happy.  I  do think it is completely necessary to have these jobs in our world, but I do not believe that these life-sucking careers have any positive impact on our true inner selves.  I am in the midst of building a future for myself full of happiness, fun, adventures, and experiences that will define who I, Davis Beveridge is as an individual in this world.  I believe we were born in this world to establish ourselves as unique individuals.  

I don't believe in a lot of things, but i do believe in Duct Tape.

For years now, duct tape has been binding the world together.