Maria Caraballo: literature of horror, fantasy and sci fi.

I remember when I first heard about this piece was through one of my old high school friend. She told me this was her favorite book because of Erin Morgensterns way of describing things immersed her into the world. I see how her style of writing and detail shine through,  Le Cirque de Rêves feels like a real place and it drags you in, the way the environments are described, it feels as if everything is essential and beautiful. Her writing style is very lyrical, intricate and elegant. The themes of children suffering the consequences of the corrupt older generations is very present. Marco and Celia could be considered victims of a broken corrupted, system of rivalry. They don't understand what the system and how they're going to be put up against each other. I see how this piece can be similar to Harry Potter, how  some of the main conflicts come from mudbloods vs purebred wizards and how that defines your role in society, imposed by the wizards that came before them....

My oh my do I love reading Tolkien, his writing has a sense of whimsy and wonder I don't really find in other fantasy works. We talk a lot about the hero's journey, but not enough about what happens before. The Hobbit speaks about conformity in our homes, but the home is never demonized or berated. It is described with love and beauty, Bilbo cares about his home because conformity is part of his identity. Before we embark on our own journey through life we are the same way. We want to stay at home and live with our family forever. That's not how life works. However, The Hobbit never demonizes the home, it is a part of life, a nest, our childhood home. The home has many memories attached to it, and its not something bad. Bilbo's conformity, also ties into his refusal to let new people into his life. Some of us have loud family members who every time they come over they rock our routine. At first, we find them annoying but later we enjoy ourselves, let go and be free ...

This book was quite a fun read. I was immersed in the magical, colorful Nigerian culture presented. I was more familiar with it because my own Latin American culture has African influences in it. So I did recognize a few parallels there. Like the masks and knives. There's no cloaks wands and house elves, it's a Truer "raw" witchcraft we can totally find in the world today.  A really cool element of this novel is how Sunny's power resides within her, we discussed it in class, but after finishing up the novel I noticed how present it was. Her name, her personality, her physical appearance, and her leopard self are all interconnected with who she is. Sunny, a being who's meant to shine bright, glow. Another reflection of culture is how the characters act. They are headstrong and mature, well all of them are leopard people, but this also is affected by the fact that the culture they grew up in is harsher. Sunny's father hits her, he's harsher on her than...

For this  I couldn't really decide which one to pick. We had some movies, graphic novels and I just couldn't decide which one to pick. So I tried watching two of the movies. An overall theme I saw within these pieces is the parallel between lust and vampires needing blood. In Andy Warhol's Dracula we see it, with the Di Fiore girls and Mario, in contrast to the count's obsessive need for blood, who in the presence of blood reacts like Mario does when he's with the girls. The Fearless vampire killers had more stereotypes than Andy Warhol's Dracula. There was a bunch of garlic present for a good chunk of the movie.Everyone's aware theres a vampire in town.  Andy Warhol's Dracula was different. Dracula was whiny and all he did was complain for a good chunk of the movie. Anton was doing the dirty work for him. It was also a strange class commentary disguised as a vampire movie... Dracula somehow represented the ultimate power in the household, since he ha...