A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

Notes on the First Quarter

Rich of adjectives and descriptions
Poor of action
Describes mostly the main character's (Ebenezer Scrooge) arrogance, stinginess and hatred towards Christmas and towards people (also close relatives for e.g. his nephew Fred)
Scrooge, at the beginning, seems misanthropic because he has not many relationships with people

Notes on the Second Quarter

Action starts taking place because the main character starts going in the past Christmas
Character starts changing perspective of life
Very sad because he sees how were his past Christmas of when he was a child, a teenager and young man
Description lessens
More dialogue- especially between him and the Phantom of the Past Christmas

Notes on the Third Quarter

Much less dialogue
More description
Less action
Main character seems a different person
There is the Ghost of the Present Christmas

Notes on the Last Quarter

More description
More dialogue
Bit more action
Ebenezer Scrooge is finally a changed and different person
He is no more stingy- he gives half a crown to a boy and a gigantic turkey to the family of one of his employees and the increase of salary to the same employee to whom he gave the turkey
He doesn't hate anymore Christmas- he goes to shout through the streets to the people to have a good Christmas and a Happy New Year
Traditional ending - they all lived happily ever after

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

Notes on the First Quarter

Introduction to a new world in comparison with others: city (Capitol) controlling other smaller (districts) and imposing its supremacy over them in many ways
Poor family- hunts and trades illegally to stay alive
Hunger games- 24 adolescents (2 from each districts) from 12 to 18 years are forced in an arena to kill each other and there is only one victor
Lots of description in comparison with the action
There is some action at the end of the first quarter when they go in the gymnasium of the Capitol and exercise in all ways of survival (from killing to the use of plants to traps)
Themes: friendship, family, survival and brutality

Notes on the Second Quarter

Very strong difference between the districts and the capitol
Capitol has very advanced high-technology and people are all strange with every type of surgery on their skin
Capitol citizens are all sadistic- they enjoy watching the kids of the districts kill each other
Lot of action the real hunger games begin
The Game makers need to give a grade respect to the level of strength of the person: the main character isn't given the attention she wants so she shoots in their direction fixing with an arrow the apple that was in the mouth of the pork to the wall behind leaving them all in disbelief and flabbergasted- she scene is very amusing and funny
Themes: friendship, brutality, death, action

Notes on the Third Quarter

Lots of deaths
Lots of action
Tributes are transported in a land full of trees and full of strange animals like mockingjays that if you sing well enough they sing your tune back; there are also hostile animals like tracker jackers that are wasps that kill you with stings or drive you to madness with the venom; there are also strange plants like nightlocks that are blueberries that kill you instantly when you eat them

Notes on the Last Quarter

Hunger games are different this year they have two victors that both come from the same district
The victors go home
More description as they leave the arena and go home
The action becomes lesser and lesser
There will be another two books because the hunger games is a trilogy: catching fire, mockingjay

Assassin's Creed: Forsaken

Assassin's Creed: Forsaken

Notes on the First Quarter

The main character is called Haytham, an Arabic name for a British boy
The chapters are divided in sections, that vary in number respect to the length of the chapter itself
It is like the other main characters of the series that assist to their father's death from such a tender age
Different because the main character is neared to the order of the Templars instead of the creed of the Assassins
He changes place frequently: he moves around Europe to fond his kidnapped sister
This child is very unlucky because the parents have died and the sister has disappeared from many years now
He is now a Templar knight, very strange for a book called Assassin's creed, but also because the arch-enemies of the Assassins are the Templars

Notes on the Second Quarter

The book is also very strange because the son, Haytham is a Templar; the father instead is an Assassin
Lot of writing
Lot of description
There isn't a lot of dialogue between the characters of the book
Many settings; they go in many places like in France, in Spain, in the Czech Republic, in England, in the island of Corsicôa, in Italy, in many cities of The New World also known as America and many other ones
There isn't a lot of action in this book
The book begins to become more descriptive with less action

Notes on the Third Quarter

There is less action in the book
The scene changes completely to America where they help natives held prisoners free from the English troops
They want to find a temple that should contain something of incredible from the infinite powers
Main character starts having feelings for a woman, a native woman
The main character finds and sees a known historical person by the name of George Washington
The main character starts understanding what has happened the night of his father's murder and wants to do the same thing that was done to his family that night to the people who put in act the whole ambush to the house

Notes on the Last Quarter

Lots of action in this last part of the book: very fascinating and interesting
Liked how the Templar and Assassin forces unites to form an indestructible team but hated when they fought and eventually one of them died
Oliver Bowden is a fantastic author
Fantastic finale of the book
Liked how this fantasy story intersects with real history the American revolution in this case
At the last part there is the epilogue in which the narration is switched to Connor, Haytham's son
All the story is in a journal done by the main narrator and it is all for his son to show him who he really was and not who the false image of him in Connor's head

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

Assassin's Creed: Revelations

Notes on the First Quarter

It is the continuation of the second book of Assassin's Creed with Ezio Auditore
The main character needs to go back to the once fortress of his creed in Masyaf and find the legendary library of the Assassin's creed, "a source of knowledge and power"
A flash back is used: at the beginning it says of him trying to enter the fortress but finishing in a cell; it then uses a flash back to make the reader understand how he arrived to Masyaf
There are a many changes of settings: Masyaf in Syria, Constantinople, Rome, etc...
There are many new characters especially new characters that are members of the Assassin's Brotherhood like Ezio Auditore

Notes on the Second Quarter

The main character is stable within the Brotherhood in Constantinople (at that time was called like nowadays Istanbul) and feels home and very confident (like very close friends) with them even though he has seen them from few weeks; he refers to them as "fast friends"
Ezio Auditore needs to find four keys in Constantinople and get the fifth from a Templar soldier in order to open the secret chamber of the Assassin's legendary library in Masyaf
Up until now he has found two keys: one in a cell; the other in a secret passage in a library
The Mentor meets the Prince during a party believing him a scholar after having had a conversation with him on a ship

Notes on the Third Quarter

Every time he gets a key, there is a flash back in which he is transported to the time of when Altaïr reigned over the Brotherhood and there is an explosion of light
He finds another key in an underground secret passage
Ezio Auditore helps the Prince to kill an officer suspected of treason, but that was in reality innocent
Ezio Auditore finally changes place from Constantinople to Mersin, in the south of Turkey, then at Nidge and finally in Derinkuyu
They are getting more technological because they the soldiers are using less the traditional weapons like swords and daggers and using more frequently pistols, muskets, grenades and bombs

Notes on the Last Quarter

He gets back the first key from a Templar
Main character changes life: from Assassin to life with his wife Sofia in a villa near Florence- he begins cultivating vines and making wine

Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade

Assassin's Creed: The Secret Crusade

Notes on the First Quarter
Story set in the countries around the Arabian peninsula mainly following Islam
Main character is different from the other two books: his name is Altair
There are always many kills and tortures like in the previous ones
Many gruesome parts
Talks about the Brotherhood that wants to bring peace in the Holy Land
The narrator is a character of the story that tells a person something that was told to him by the main character: it is a story in another story

Notes on the Second Quarter
Altair tells the story of his childhood from his father's death to the enter in the Brotherhood as a novice- the author uses a technique called flash-back
Many changes in the setting of the place: Masyaf, Acre, Jerusalem, Damascus
There is a flash-forward in which it tells something that needs to happen; then it returns back to normality
When the main character passes in front of another character, the author describes tension between the two; in the next chapter it describes what has happened to them for that hostility to sprout
It is also mentioned a group of famous knights in Medieval history: the Templars

Notes on the Third Quarter
After the middle of the story, it seems like if the story finishes but then a new one starts
The setting of the story changes a lot of times- from Masyaf in the Arabian Peninsula to the island of Cyprus and its little cities
More description taking place and less action respect to the other half of the story"Bad" is overpowered by "Good"There are characters of the Middle Ages that have really existed like Saladin (in the story Salah Al'din) and King Richard the Lion Heart

Notes on the Last Quarter
Setting changes another time: the main character returns to the headquarters, Masyaf, then travels to the East till MongoliaFirst time character has feelings for a womanThere are many jumps in years-he leaves Masyaf and then returns ten years later; he leaves Masyaf again and returns twenty years later There are many changes in years- the story is told by a narrator called Niccolò Polo and the narration is altered between short pieces related to the narrator himself and many chapters to the life of the Master Assassin AltairAt the epilogue it anticipates the fourth book going forward in years (from the 1200s to the 1500s)

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood

Sequel of Assassin's Creed: Renaissance

Ezio Auditore, the main character, needs to overpower and free Rome from the Borgia tyranny, that they are building up in order to become rulers of Italy
Very gruesome parts, for example on page 126 and page 127: "Overtaking a sixth, Ezio leant down and, turning backwards, ripped the man's stomach open so that his guts spilled onto the ground and he stumbled over them as he fell and died."

Many people die even in first pages of this book

Not recommended to people who can't stand tortures, especially when they describe them in detail

This book has other themes other than war, like love; Ezio in fact falls in love with many women, but after a series of events that take place in the book, the path of the two lovers eventually separates 

The author uses a variety of vocabulary; he uses a lot of different adjectives in order to not annoy the reader and make the story more interesting

There are many people that have really existed like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Niccolò Machiavelli, the Borgia family and Caterina Sforza

The end of the book is the end of the book like many others; but it always leaves you a hint so that you can understand that it is not finished and that there will be a sequel (it did it also in the first book of the series). The last part of the book tells about these three great friends (I'll not mention the names if not I'll ruin you the book), that will divide to go in different directions but fate will join them again

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

     Very adventurous

     Descriptive

Not realistic- at the end they are thrown out of a volcano of the islands near Sicily having travelled underground from the Icelandic volcano of Sneffels

Fantasy book

Good idea of code to decipher- old parchment in an old book

Not recommended to people who don’t like fantasy and adventure books

Jules Verne- good author of books- other books are “Twenty thousand leagues under the sea level” which I would like to read

Lot of action taking place

There are some boring parts like when Axel and his uncle depart for the journey from Denmark to the inside of Mount Sneffels

The progress of the events in the book is normal: neither too fast and neither too slowly

In my opinion, this is the best classic book that I’ve ever read

Good relationship between Axel and his uncle, professor Lidenbrock, and their guide Hans, the Icelander 

The voyage that they take is full of obstacles, like sea monsters and many other strange encounters that make this book ultra-fascinating

The setting changes a lot of times because this book has lot of action, both on the ground and underground: Hamburg in Germany, Denmark, Iceland, in the subterranean strata, Stromboli- a little Italian island near to Sicily