iris_ymra's reviews
137 reviews

Risham seorang rakyat Malaysia yang memilih menjadi seorang samurai dan yakuza apabila hatinya tertaut pada Noriko juga merupakan seorang samurai dan yakuza, ketika berhijrah ke Jepun dek kerana merasakan kehidupannya adalah sebuah kehiduapan yang tanpa berkah. Bergelumang di dalam dunia yakuza yang penuh dengan bahaya dan pembunuhan tidak diendahkan oleh Risham yang menggunakan gelaran Ryu-Watanabe sewaktu berada di negara matahari terbit itu. Dia kemudian membawa duka hatinya kembali semula ke tanah air setelah Norika memilih untuk berkahwin dengan Yoshitaka kerana perbezaan fahaman dan kepercayaan mereka, namun siapa yang menyangka konflik kehidupan akhirnya membawa semula Risham ke Jepun yang akhirnya turut membawa bersama konflik itu ke Malaysia setelah dia kembali semula ke tanah air sendiri ini. Pergolakkan cinta juga turut berlaku berlaku -- Sabrina dan Noriko -- menyimpan rasa buat Risham. Setiap mereka mengharapkan peluang, meski realitinya tidak semua akan memiliki peluang yang sama.

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Hatiku Di Harajuku, membawa kita bersama-sama seperti turut berada di tanah matahari terbit. Jalan penceritaan sekali-kali menyelitkan fakta-fakta sejarah yang pada saya tidaklah menjadi satu masalah. Plot berjalan dan berkembang dengan cukup kemas dan mudah untuk difahami. Beberapa unsur saspen turut dapat saya tangkap tapi tidaklah spoiled unsur itu sama sekali. Konflik yang panjang tetapi tidak sama menjadikan cerita tidak terasa meleret. Dan perkembangan watak sentiasa mengikut kepentingan watak itu sendiri di dalam novel ini, tidak menjadikan ada watak yang hanya terasa sia-sia untuk berada di dalam jalan cerita.

It's been a great journey venturing into Rosie and Alex's life. That friggin fifty years of their lives had brought me together through the rain, the storm, the cloudy days, the bright sunny days, cold, hot -- and most importantly that rainbows, all of them had put colour in me through out my reading. What was it that Rosie & Alex tried to put up against to of boy and girl could never be just bestfriend -- they could never, when their hearts were involved.

It's a frustrating and overwhelming all together reading their story. They both had kept themselves in silence for too long, to finally be able to talk about that silence they had gone through, but nontheless better late than never.

And the book itself isn't just about the relationship between Rosie and Alex, there's so much more accompanying their journey and every each of them thought us the thing in our relationship that we should never take for granted, especially time and moments.

"Don't you want to be alive before you die?"

The storyline went back and forth between the lives' of Marie-Laure Le Blanc and Werner Pfenning across Germany and France -- and few more countries. It started with their lives before the war, during the war, and after the war -- only that this smart and wise Werner didn't make it to the end.

The story potrayed a strong relationship between family and friends. How the lives were during the war, what it took from the living and what's left after.

And though the timeline ocurred during war, I am a bit glad that the war itself wasn't written so much more descriptively -- looking how good Doerr is on that aspect -- because even the death of Werner has left me with a hollow inside my heart. I started reading through the book along with Werner, and it's tough to end it without him.
Perhaps there was definitely light that I didn't quite see.

It warned you about the love story, love story that would make you fell in love to while reading them.

This book is more than a love story between two people; it thought me the true marvels and oddities -- a story I could relate as a muslim myself.

Though I must say, that I can't help myself to picture the relationship between Adam and Zayneb, and how I'd smile the entire time reading their story. And cried, and laughed, and annoyed.

How Adam and Zayneb handled their Marvels and Oddities in life, is definitely an inspiration I found upon finishing my read.

Ps. And now I am inspired to write my own Marvels & Odities.

I watched the movie first and only then I started to read this book, seriously talking the Peter Kavinsky in the movie really made me swooned over by him (fangirling much).

But, after that when I finally over Peter Kavinsky, I think 'To All The Boys I've Loved Before' is pretty much a typical teenage romance. Of course it still made me smiled like an idiot reading thru it, but then I think that's what happend at the very first moment when you're in love.

The only thing that really, really got into me is when Lara Jean was having a fight with her sister Margot - I cried reading that scene.

Yes it is a typical story (for me) but I still love it.

The story of Ali and Amirah; the struggle they faced on becoming a better muslims; the issues in muslim community the hard yet true events that as a muslim I am quite familiar with. The story revolved around individual, family, and friendship. It conveyed the journey -- of every one of the characters -- we as a muslim could say, 'I'd been in this situation before', as we are striving to stand strong and rooted in this right path, of deen.

And around all of that, how these two souls -- Ali and Amirah -- found their hearts to be beating the same rhythm of falling in love, from the first moment of their encounter. How the two finally settled to be in a halal relationship in most overwhelming and 'unconventional' way of performing their nikah -- one event that'll worth telling the future children.

I have all sort of emotions along my reading; the frustration, the feeling touched, the happiness, the sadness, the anger -- but at the end, everything just fall into places accordingly -- the same way our life will definitley be.

I love this book so much; I love how Yasmin Mogahed interpreted things that I hardly understood before. Every anologies that being used in this book were making me see what she was trying to say so much more easily.

This book aspired us to freeing ourselves from slavery of this worldly life and come back to the only master of every slave; Allah s.w.t.. It made us understand the nature of human being, in no matter what we were going through and going to do; we could never reach perfection because sometimes we (definitely) doomed to failure -- and understanding the notion is crucial to keep the perseverance, to never stop striving.

And there's the one topic I really like the most -- Women's Status -- she showed me what the real women empowerment is for me as a muslim, the one standard that I have to achive -- the only one that has been set by my God; Allah s.w.t..

A book that's definitely worth reading; that'll make you incline to really wanting to reclaim your heart.

Daisy McDaniel, was her real name before she died for the first time in a bus crash that apparently wasn't really an accident. Daisy with twenty other kids -- she loved to call bus kids -- died in the crash and were brought back to live under the Revive Program -- which is a drug used -- that was still undergoing test and expetriment -- to bring back a dead person back alive. The drug but only worked on a healthy body before dead, that excluded cancer patient; Daisy's friend Audrey, the sister to a boy she had catched feeling on in English class -- Matt -- and because of that Daisy didn't want anymore relocation to take place in her life. Her whole point of view shifted when she realized that Revive experiment didn't even consider any other medical option on a patient once they were put under it -- if it worked it worked, if not, then dead was consider it. The appearance of case 22, had Daisy come with a theory that in end revealed the whole grusome of the person behind this program whom they called 'God', and she was once again faced with death.

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I find that the story revolved equally balance in between romance and sci-fi through out its storyline, though I think that romance took more of the story than the thrill of the idea of a program like Revive. I think the story could still expand more into the conflict of the test, the people involved -- other that the bus kids -- like the disciples, and 'God' and Cassie themselves, though mentioned that the two were already in custody, I still think that too many informations were lacking about them whilst I think that the two are quiet charismatic antagonists. The book indeed has far more potential thrill and mystery in it.

The Sunderly family had to move to Vane after Erasmus Sunderly scandal about his finding of a fossil had turned out to be a fake.

Faith Sunderly -- the daugther -- a bright, wise, and intelligent, for her sexuality at the era of 1800 -- had always bore a passion toward science just like her father Erasmus Sunderly.

The death of his beloving father, at the time when Faith had convinced herself that her father indeed saw her as a wise girl -- had brought her into madness. Finding out about the specimen her father was currently working on upon reading his journal, had brought Faith to what The Lie Tree was able to do. It fed on lies and revealed secrets -- and the real truth about his late father. And Faith afterward would never be the same herself anymore -- not 'just' a girl, a female anymore.

Dash seorang gadis yang hidup dalam persekitaran budaya ketiga, dihantar pulang ke Malaysia oleh ibu dan ayahnya dengan harapan gadis itu kembali kepada Melayu setelah insiden yang berlaku di tanah Delhi; jati diri yang berteraskan budaya dan bangsa, yang namun acap kali terlupakan betapa bangsa Melayu itu setiap kali disebut tidak seharusnya tanpa agama Islam yang menjadi nadi dalam kehidupan. Namun, Melayu itu budaya tetapi Islam merentasi segala itu -- merentasi bangsa, adat resam, ruang benua, sempadan dan waktu.

Dash bukan sahaja setelah menjejak kaki ke tanah Malaysia mengenal budaya asal usul darahnya tetapi juga menjadi ingin kembali kepada fitrah terlahirnya dia sebagai seorang Muslim, dan membesar sebagai seorang Muslim -- yang hanya pada dasar nama. Malah turut membawa kepada perkenalan dengan Badlee -- Hitler Lee -- yang sedikit sebanyak turut bawa impak dalam dirinya.

Beberapa tahun belalu setelah itu membawa mereka menjadi lebih rapat ketika menuntut ilmu di Aberdeen -- namun siapa yang sangka orang yang Dash sudah letak hati dan harap malah menjadi orang yang menempelak dirinya yang kini dek hanya kerana dia pernah menjadi dirinya yang dulu -- kerana dirinya yang kini hanya ingin lebih dekat kepada pengabdian, kembali kepada fitrah.

Tetapi waktu juga usai menjawab semuanya, menyelesai masalah -- dan ketika di hari sudah Badlee dan Dash barangkali sudah jumpa satu titik yang mengimbangi kedua-duanya. Dan Dash dengan apa yang ada di laluan hidupnya.

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Hlovate, membawakan cukup rencah kesenian dalam kisah Anthem. Seni muzik daripada klasik ke era moden -- okestra dan band banyak mengisi ruang naratif kisah. Seni budaya dan sejarah menjadi pengerak jalan cetrita. Meraihkan banyak perbezaan dalam satu fahaman toleransi. Hubungan kekeluargaan, persahabatan, ketuhanan; di hampar mengisi saji buat minda pembaca. Tetapi dengan hanya satu matlamat utama, mencipta Anthem buat sang watak utama dan kita semua pembaca.

Gaya bahasa dan penulisan yang santai tapi dalam waktu serupa penuh terisi dengan ilmiah. Saya belajar banyak benda baharu -- belajar memahami -- kerana pernah melalui hidup seumpama Dash, mungkin juga kita semua sama meski dalam suasana yang berbeza tetapi konteksnya tetap serupa.