This is is a long review I wrote on paper, and it made me very happy(: p.s. read ender's shadow first before you read this review or risk getting spoiled!
Ender's Shadow by Orson Scott Card
This is one of the few books that I have read that gave me the need to cry. (besides the time sirius feel through the veil) OSC writes from bean's point of view when telling the tale of ender's game, and so there is added suspense because you know what is going to happen. Bean's impoverished childhood makes him emotionally detached, but when he gets to battle school and know more about ender, he almost emaluates him through bean's idolatry. Bean's hunger for and ability to gather information results in him probing into the battle school system, and being able to log in as a teacher. However, he did not play the mind game, and so did not allow Jane to make a philotic connection with him, unlike ender did, and so the teacher know less of his personality. (refer to Xenoxide)
Ender has more emotional understanding than bean, having elements of Valentine's character. Ender is therefore better at leadership and has more likeability than bean, and also had more friends than bean. It comes not as a surprise that ender is chosen to be commmander of Dragon Army, and eventually commander of the fleet sent to extinguish the buggers. Bean is sharper and more intelligent than any of the soldiers, despite being the youngest, and this allows him to grasp new concepts quickly but still have time left over to study earth's political situation and discover locke and demesthothenes, peter and valentine wiggin. It is therefore almost natural that bean was ender's backup, ahould anything have gone wrong, and he also took the role of watching out for other players but still continued to execute ender's strategies when he was occupied.
Bean has the courage and determination to seem brave, despite knowing that the fleet sent to kill the buggers was real, and not just computer graphics on a screen. It made the xenocide all the more chilling, knowing this, with the added emotional attachment, knowing that the fleet was composed of real soldiers being led to their sacrificial deaths by a bunch of children. Towards the end, Bean senses Ender's disppointment and exhaustion, although he doesn't feel it himself. I admire bean for his tenacity and determination to get over his shortcomings, like his size and age, or losing it when he gets nervous (haha a lot like me), making the most of what he has and trying to help and support ender in any way.
Although it felt a little bad-fic-ish in the middle, when OSC was filling up battle school plot gaps, because it sounded very repetitive, this book complements Ender's Game very nicely, especially if you have read Speaker of the Dead or Xenocide. You also get to know why ender is able to develop a philotic connection with the sole surviving bugger queen in this book. I like OSC because he gives a lot of backstory, the kind of thing you look for in fics, just that this is written by the author himself and so is 100% official, and so ruthlessly destroys bad theories. There is MORE backstory in Shadow of the Hegemon, which is sitting very nicely in the school library, a 30-second walk from my classroom :D, just that I'm reading Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Dream Country now, and was reading bio pt things before and the book day book is next in line.

Sometimes I think that the only thing I am good at is reading books and then plugging them incessantly until I get to the next one, so I'll probably be a freelance writer and plug books/ movies/ theater for people, since working at the ST doesn't really appeal to me. Mum wouldn't be thrilled at this proposition though; she would like me to have a 'professional' job like medicine/ engineering/ architecture/ law etc, not some wishy washy sociology/ anthropology major- what I have my eyes on.

snarry games <33>< color="#009900">not very comforting for someone who is snarry-hungry, or would die if snarry wasn't administered in five minutes. Some people though, think snarry is wrong, especially oh great cat, wencen and siling. They ship drarry and d/Hr, which I appreciate as well, but there aren't drarry games or d/hr games, are there? XD Sadly, I've read one of the wartime ones, and I think it was overly dramatic and was not sufficiently clear, even though the comment-writers said it "gave them goosebumps". Maybe I should try the post-war ones.

eois are looming on the horizon, and that means less computer time, less reading, more mugging till your nose is shiny and your shoulders ache. I think I should have purpose. and be more discipined, by planning systematically and with sufficient self-control. I have lots of reading to do for bio pt, and I hate hate hate the language it comes in because I have to read every sentence twice, being the dense, slow reader I am. Unlike geeru, who can finish two terry prachetts in a day. Although terry prachetts are entirely different things altogether, I fell I lack the self-motivation to read about creationism than to reach for ender's shadow. [which explains a lot about leadership and the Cretaceous Whale Fish and the Greater Lemur Knut, but more in another post]

For the wales trip, I almost thought that you couldn't bring anything but a ziplock bag with you on the plane for all inbound flights to heathrow, (jkr was almost separated from her manuscript) but I just checked, and the restrictions are similar to the US ones, and they allow large hand baggage but you have to put all liquids in a pint-sized ziplock bag, with no bottle >100ml. *whew* I can occupy myself properly. The restrictions are very amusing: "Allowed: wedding cake, hat box, wedding dress" and the faq too: "I would also like to know what checks you make on all the staff working at the airport - how do you know there are no terrorists working in security? Or smuggling bombs on planes via the food that is put onto the planes?" I sound very free.

Went to do FA duty on Saturday for wrcd, and I very smartly forgot to bring my shorts, and ended up walking around with a very, um, transparent uniform ><>.<

read neil gaiman's a game of you, instalment 5 of the sandman series. However, it was a little disappointing because the story wasn't long/developed enough for me, and it left me wanting more details and background. But you can only fit so much into a graphic novel, so. Plus I think I have understood this book better than the rest I have read, and it wasn't as scary or violent as the other ones. I sound childish and wussy, but the last one I read (book 1 I think) was so haunting that it put me off sadman for a while. Tried to introduce sandman to shinyi and sarah, and I think they were a little into it for the first few pages, but the graphic-ness wasn't for them. It is also fairly diffcult to read in school without someone(a teacher ) peering over your shoulder and recommending you to the school shrink. Interestingly, I have a feeling that it would be perfectly acceptable for boys of my age to read this kind of thing :/ Though people in my school read animae, which is also graphic but rated nc-16, I think sandman would be rated R(A) because of nudity and violence. I shouldn't focus much on the ratings, and should focus more on the plot and things, which made me want to read it in the first place.

I am selfish, irritable, cranky, inconsiderate, self-centred, and in desperate need of anger management. I also felt like heaving this morning, and tended to scream at people more than usual.

I was thinking of having a harry potter release party either on the day itself (July 21st) where everyone gathers with coffee and cookies to read and then mass review after, or a pre-party a week before (July 13th) to coincide with the movie and to discuss theories or do readings (reading aloud of the various books in the series). Since most of the release parties are organised by major bookstores, and there is no harrypotter-fan community in Singapore that I know of, (I have no parties to go to!) it would be nice if I could do my own. If enough people are interested, we could even hold it in school or something- a bigger area for more people. (I wish!) In the meantime, it would be nice if people could second me on the ideas, or say which party they prefer. I 'll also be on the hunt for any singaporean fanbases, so see if they have anything planned. If nobody is really interested, the least I could do is a small gathering with people like sihui, siling, chele, geeru, charisse, crystal and other fans. Mugglenet is probably doing parties and even a tour (in the US D:) haha so I feel pretty left out.