reviews

Because I follow John Green's video blog I read Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. Its about life and people in a Mumbai, India slum. Its non-fiction but its told like a story and I got kinda bored in the middle and then I remembered it was non-fiction and then I started to like it. Books like this make me so thankful I live in such a wealthy, beautiful, clean country. Corruption has a different name in India- its all government. The two are synonymous. At least in America we still fight it and talk about it. It shed light on a very real people- it didn't romanticize the poor in any way. It was raw and I liked it. It was hopeful but not in american-cookie-cutter kind of way. The hope was that they were still alive, still struggling to survive in a world that did nothing for them.Yesterday I read (in yes, a single day) The Da Vinci Code. It was a nice breather literately after the intense reality of Btbf but it was a different kind of intense in that I could not put it down and did my fair amount of screaming in my pillow. It was like reading an action movie. I also think I will now see pagan symbols in my daily life but it was super interesting. The chalice and the sword symbols were so cool (especially when they became the star of David- that blew my mind) and a lot of the facts presented were stuff that I already knew- like the fact that the Catholic church incorporated pagan stuff (Dec 25 for winter solstice and Christmas), that the Bible is highly edited and revised but this book took it to a whole new level. I also have heard the possibility that Christ and Mary Magdalene were married and I know that the catholic church had a monopoly on the information and that there were very corrupt people that were in power. The unity/ yin and yang of men and woman in the pagan symbols was fascinating. I think there is some truth in it but mostly it was just interesting to think about. Major food for thought.