Discussion || Graphic Novels as Literature

Are graphic novels considered literature?

I just finished watching last weeks episode of Girl Meets World and felt like discussing this topic. First, let me say that I love the Boy Meets World reboot, it is amazing and I especially love all of the nods to us 90's kids who grew up with the original show. 

Let me recap this episode for you. 

In this episode the students get a new English teacher. In walks this young woman who wears a leather jacket, has a helmet, and carries herself in an extremely positive way. (Reminding you of anyone yet?) Her name is Harper, yes after Harper Lee, and she has an unconventional way of wanting to teach her students. Her first book is a graphic novel, The Dark Night Returns. 

The school principal walks by and is outraged that the students all have comics on their desks because it is not part of school policy. Nonetheless, she tells them to go home and read it anyway. 

Back at the Matthew's home Riley, Cory and Topanga's daughter, and Mya, her best friend, are rushing through dinner so they can go do their homework. Topanga questions them and they start to tell her all about their new teacher. This is when Topanga mentions to Cory that the teachers sounds like a teacher they had once. (Have you figured it out?) 

The next day in the classroom Harper is having the students say what they have learned about good vs evil from reading this graphic novel. The principal comes in and ultimately fires her. When Cory comes to her aid, he also gets fired. However, Topanga mentions that he isn't legally allowed to fire them without talking to the superintendent of the school. It took me a while to figure out who Harper was supposed to remind you of. She is supposed to be this generations Mr. Turner. Yes, that Mr. Turner. :) 

The following day Cory and Harper are in a classroom with the principal who is gloating that he's pretty close to the superintendent when Cory mentions that he and Mr. Turner go way back. The reunion is heart warming and brilliant. We also find out that Mr. Turner is still involved in the Matthew's lives and Riley even calls him Uncle. By the end of the episode both Cory and Harper have kept jobs because the children will learn from them, even with Harper's unconventional teaching methods. You learn that she was using Batman as a way to get the children to realize good and evil before giving them To Kill a Mockingbird and she asked them to call her Harper so they could make the connection to Harper Lee. 

I love that they used this episode the week that the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird was released. Being a book lover I felt a strong connection to this episode. 

Now to the question I asked at the beginning of this post. I truly do believe that graphic novels should be considered literature. As this episode of Girl Meets World shows, graphic novels can teach you about good and evil in a way that other pieces of literature may not be able to. I think that graphic novels can help people who consider themselves non readers be able to use a different form of literature that they can connect to. 

Just because a piece of literature isn't a 300+ page novel and has the best writing in it doesn't make it any less valuable. Personally I have been getting more into graphic novels and plan to read more in the future. Graphic novels not only give you dialogue, but they give you pictures to help with the placement and descriptions that other literature may not be able to. In a single page of a graphic novel we can see the location, judge the feel of the scene, and meet multiple characters with barely any words. In other forms of literature it may take ten to twenty pages to achieve all that information and it still may not be enough to help some people connect to the story. 

Overall I do feel that graphic novels can be considered literature and I love the idea of added some into a school curriculum, assuming they were thought out and a teacher could build a good lesson plan on it. I'm thankful for this episode of Girl Meets World because it may get children interesting in reading who may not have been before. Seeing that they can read something other than the required reading, may open their mind to more amazing stories. 

Thanks for reading :) 

Until next time, 

G 

 

Some Updates!!

Hey guys!

Gina here. As you may have noticed there have been some changes within this blog/BookTube channel lately. This is now a solo channel that I will be running. Denny did make a farewell video explaining why he has stepped away from In Cold Lit, you can watch it here.

With this change comes some changes that I plan on bringing to In Cold Lit. One of those changes is that I want to focus more on this blog than I have been. Since starting with BookTube this blog hasn't had many posts but I hope to change that.

I would like to make a review for every book I read, but I'm not sure that will be doable. I am going to try however! I plan on starting this very soon, within the next few weeks. I would also like to start making more discussion posts on the blog as well. For me I seem to be able to express my feelings more in writing than I can in video, so while I work on being more comfortable in front of the camera to be able to make more discussion videos I will be posting discussion based posts on here.

That's all for tonight, but I plan to be back soon!

Until next time,

Gina

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas || Book Review and Disscussion

Hello everyone!

Today’s post is going to be over “A Court of Thorns and Roses” by Sarah J. Maas. The first part of this post will be spoiler free but I will have a spoiler filled section toward the bottom. I will give warning and tab down a ways to help you avoid spoilers.

“A Court of Thorns and Roses” (ACOTAR) takes place in the world of Prythian which has been separated into mortal lands and faerie lands. We learn that there was a war that ended in a truce between fae and humans that put in place this separation. The two parts are separated by a wall that the humans believe there is no way to get through it, but we learn that there is a way through the wall. The humans have been told stories of the faerie lands that are meant to scare them into not being curious enough to venture through this wall.

The book opens up with our main character, a 19 year old girl Feyre, hunting for her family in the woods in the dead of winter. Though she is the youngest of the family she had promised her mother that she would take care of them. While hunting she comes across a wolf that is after the doe she was about shoot. She ends up killing both the oversized wolf and the doe, taking what she can to sell.  That night a beast shows up at their house demanding to know who killed the wolf. This is when we learn that the oversized wolf was in fact fae. The beast, Tamlin, informs the family that it is in the treaty that was made hundreds of years ago that humans must pay for killing a faerie. He ends up giving Feyre the choice of being killed on the spot or going to live in the faerie lands, with him, for the remainder of his life. Feyre chooses to go with him and our story truly begins.

This is a Beauty and the Beast retelling so we do see aspects of Beauty and the Beast (BATB). I enjoy fairy tale retellings because it gives us a different aspect of the fairy tales we have all grown to love. BATB is one of my favorites and Sarah J. Maas did it justice. While reading there were little hints for fans of BATB, such as Feyre drinking out of a chipped tea cup, a giant library in Tamlin’s home, and even Feyre putting on a golden gown. There were also more dramatic changes to fit the story and the world. These changes were so well done and I loved every moment of it. I will get into these changes more in depth in the spoiler section of this post.

The characters in this book are fantastic and I pretty much loved every single one of them. There were a few exceptions for very obvious reasons but even those characters I really enjoyed their contribution to the story. Obviously we have Feyre and Tamlin who we would classify as Belle and the Beast but we also get to see a bit of Feyres family, her dad and two older sisters. These characters were interesting to say the least. I enjoyed seeing into Feyre’s past and getting an idea of why her family acts like they do. While they aren’t the most likeable characters their story is intriguing. Her sister, Nesta, did have some redeeming elements and I am thrilled that we are going to be seeing more of her in the future.

We also have the wide variety of fae. One of my favorite characters was Lucien, who is Tamlin’s right hand man and possibly even his best friend. I really loved his sarcasm and his sas. He started off a bit rude and unrelatable but as you get to know him you start seeing his charm and how great of a character he is. I greatly enjoyed his and Feyre’s. Lucien’s back story is also interesting and I can’t wait to see more of him. Then we have Alis, who is put in charge of helping Feyre throughout her stay. I love Alis and hopefully we will be able to see more of her and her story.

The last character I want to discuss is Rhysand, or Rhys. At first Rhys was creepy and I didn’t really know what to think of him. As the story goes on his character is shown to be rude and villainous but once we know more of his background and get insight into why he is acting the way he is he becomes quite likable.  

Over all Sarah has done a fantastic job of building up this world and her characters. Though we mainly stayed within the Spring Court of the faerie lands we got a glimpse at the Night Court and I can’t wait to see what the other courts will bring to the story. Sarah does such a great job of writing in this world that the words disappear from the page and you are left with a movie. The visualization was crystal clear for me and I didn't want to put this book down.

I’m now going to go into spoilers, so please if you have not read ACOTAR and do not wish to be spoiled please stop reading. Thank you.

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WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

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I really enjoyed the aspect of the curse in this book. Instead of turning the fae into inanimate objects they are cursed with their magic being weakened and masks of animals stuck to their faces. Having masks being their ‘beast’ was a fantastic element that I quite enjoyed. We still got that element of not being able to see the true form of our beast without it being inappropriate and strange. I also loved the fact that Tamlin knew who he was and tried to make Feyre fall in love with him for who he is instead of her having to change him for the better.

Another switch I liked from the original fairy tale and this book was the fact that Feyre was illiterate and Tamlin wanted to help her learn to read. At first I didn’t like that Fayre was illiterate because Belle being a reader is a huge part of why I love BATB, but it worked and I can’t wait to see where Sarah goes with that element of the story. Instead of using books as her outlet, Feyre used painting. I loved that she was able to paint the things she was feeling and the beautiful things she saw throughout the fae lands.

Now let’s talk about Rhysand. Oh my lanta. I don’t know how I feel about him completely yet. It’s pretty clear that there may be a love triangle later into the series and idk how I like it. I really enjoy Tamlin and Feyre together but I can see maybe likeing Rys and Feyre in the future, but for now I’m on ship Feylin!

I didn’t really like Rys at first, he was a jerk and very villainous but once we learned that he was doing everything he could to help Feyre I started to like him more. Yeah maybe he was helping her just so he, himself, could be free, but he was helping her nonetheless. I wasn’t anticipating to like him as much as I do and it will be very interesting to learn more about the Night Court and what he is going to have Feyre do each week she is with him.

I also really enjoyed the trials; it was such a unique and unexpected way for Feyre to break the curse since she missed the deadline of falling in love with Tamlin. I could not stop reading through the trials and I’m pretty sure my face showed pure disgust while reading about the giant worm and the mud. That was horrible! And the visuals were so well done that I could clearly see the disgusting giant worm coming after her as she tried to find a way out of the pit.

I also loved the fact that all of the High Fae came together to help Tamlin keep Feyre alive by putting their powers through her, ultimately turning her fae. I am so thrilled that this happened in the first book rather than making us wait the entire series for the inevitable to happen (I’m looking at you Twilight.)  It is going to be such a long wait for the second book to see what happens in this magical world that Sarah has given us but I’m looking forward to the next book already.

That is all I have for you at the moment. Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you have finished this book let me know in the comments. One thing I’m most interested in knowing, are you shipping Feyre with Tamlin, or Ryhs? J

Until next time,

G 

 

Favorite Genre and Why? || Tuesday Talks April 21, 2015

Hello everyone!

Today I'd like to take a moment to talk about favorite genres. I thought about making this a video post, but ultimately decided it would be better to just jot my thoughts down in writing instead (and my camera needs to be charged.)

Today's Tuesday Talks is about what your favorite genre is and why. I've mentioned in a few videos that I don't like that question because I feel like I don't have a favorite genre, I like a wide range of genres. Instead of narrowing down to one genre I thought I'd talk about a few of the genres I find myself reading most often and why.

Dystopian: I've noticed that I've been reading a lot of Dystopian novels as of late. I enjoy dystopian because you can do so much with the genre and it gives you a new outlook on life. Although I've read a number of dystopian lately I'm actually starting to get tried of the genre, to be honest. I feel like there is so much that could be done with the genre, instead it feels like the same story is being recycled. Would I consider dystopian a favorite? Yes and no. Yes, mainly because it seems to be the bulk of what I've been reading and no, because I don't actively search for dystopian novels to read.

Contemporary/Chick-Lit: I don't read contemporary often, but I would consider it one of my favorite genres. I enjoy a good 'chick-lit' novel every now and then, sometimes you are just in the mood for a good light happy book. I like to read contemporary novels when I'm in the mood for something that isn't extremely intense or if I'm looking for something that is realistic. Everyone has those moods, right? As far as strictly 'chick-lit' books, I read those even less often than other contemporary books. I typically pick up a chick lit book when I'm looking for something bubbly, fun, light, and has an overall happy feel to it.

Horror/Mystery/Thriller: If I did have to choose just one specific genre it would have to be psychological thrillers. I love a good thriller, especially the psychological ones. I haven't read too many of these types of books lately, but I do love them. I enjoy these genres because they make you think, they give you an excuse to channel your inner detective to try and figure out the story before the end.

Biography/Memoir: I enjoy reading books by my favorite celebrities. I know a lot of people criticize famous people for writing books, but I thoroughly enjoy reading them (with the exception of a few). That being said, I haven't yet read that many non celebrity memoirs. The ones I have read I have enjoyed because the stories they tell are eye opening and moving. I find the ones I pick up most, whether it be to read or put on my wishlist, are those that deal with some type of underlying psychological issue. I find the human mind fascinating and it is part of the reason I went into psychology.

I also tend to enjoy humor novels, everyone loves a good laugh every now and then! I wouldn't consider humor on of my favorite genres though, because I typically only ever pick up a humor book if it is on the bargain shelf or it just happens to catch my eye. That being said, I do enjoy humor mixed within other genres as well.

Genres I don't read, but I am trying to get more into: Science Fiction, Fantasy, and classics. I enjoy the idea of fantasy and have found quite a few books that spark my interest, I just need to take the jump and start reading that genre. As for classics, I have noticed as I get older the more I am interested in picking up some of the classics I missed out on in high school, and some others that just look interesting.

That's all I have on the subject at this time. I hope you all enjoyed this, thanks for taking the time to read it!! :)

Let me know some of your favorite genres!! :D Let's chat!

Until next time,

G





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Reading Slump??

Hello Everyone and Happy Friday!!

Let me just jump right in and say it, I think I'm in a reading slump.

Now before you go checking goodreads and seeing that I just started 2 new books and finished another earlier this week let me tell you why I think I'm in a slump.

My slumps tend to be more focused on the fact that there are far too many choices on which book to pick up next. On one hand I need to finish the Divergent Trilogy but on the other I'm not enjoying it so I keep looking to my TBR to see what book stands out and yells "READ ME!"

The answer: none of them.

Okay that's a lie, in reality a TON of my TBR books are yelling at me right now, I just don't know what mood I'm in, therefore I'm having issues committing to a book. The last 2 weeks of March I didn't read a single thing, and here we are 10 days into April and I've completed one book....which I started in March. I would definitely consider this a slump. So what should I do??

I'm currently listening to the third installment of the Divergent Trilogy, Allegiant, which I'm glad I have it on audio book because, honestly, I would probably quit it and not pick it up again until the movie was about to come out. I'm not enjoying it as much as I enjoyed Divergent, and that saddens me.

Other than Alligent I have recently picked up and set down a handful of different books just waiting for something to spark my interest and help boost me out of this slump. There is no doubt that I have quite a few books I want to get to in the near future, but figuring out what I'm in the mood for is no easy task.

My solution? Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. The trailer for the movie adaptation of this book just came out and looks AMAZING! I've been on the fence about wanting to read it but after seeing the trailer I can't wait to dive into the book! I went out and bought it and plan on starting it this evening. I have hope that this book will help get me back into the swing of reading, but I'm not entirely sure it will.

All that being said, I've been thinking about the question that comes up in tags a lot, you know the one that is always some form of 'How do you get out of a reading slump?' I've answered this questions in various ways but I think my answer to this question is that I just keep picking up books until something can hold my attention for more than 5 pages. Although those 5 pages of those many books may be interesting and I have interest in reading it, I am a complete mood reading and I have to be feeling it to continue.

So here's to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl! :)

Hope you all have an amazing weekend!

Until next time,

G

Mental Illness Awareness Read-A-Long #Mentalong

Hello everyone,

I wanted to make this a video post, but every time I turned the camera on to record I just got lost in my words and couldn't express what I wanted to say properly, so I decided to make this a blog post instead.

This post is going to be about mental health and what the Mental Illness Awareness Read-A-Long (#Mentalong) means to me.

Mental Illness is classified as any mental health disorder that manipulates a person’s thoughts, behavior, and/or mood. There are many types of mental disorders; to name a few there is depression, panic disorders, anxiety disorders, sleep disorders, eating disorders, OCD, Schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and many many more. This readalong is about raising awareness of mental illness.

Unlike physical illness that can be seen, mental illness is all within the brain and isn't easy to point out. If you were to see someone with a cast or on crutches you would know immediately that they had been/are hurt/sick and in recovery. Whereas if you see someone who looks sad we tend to brush them off and think “oh they’re just having a bad day, they’ll get over it.” Sometimes it isn't as simple as having a singular bad day. As a society, we are quick to judge and not take the time to understand someone before writing them off. Mental illnesses are a result of chemical imbalances in the brain. Yes, there are medications to help with a lot of psychological disorders, but there is also various types of therapy to help with the mental illness as well.  

As many of you know, I have my BA in psychology. Psychology has always interested me, even if I didn't know it until my late teens. I’ve always been interested in science and the brain but it wasn’t until I took a psychology class my senior year of high school that I really started to think about psychology. It wasn’t until my second semester of college that I changed my major to Psychology. I had started out as photography major but quickly changed my mind to something I was more interested in. Being invested in the subject I was ecstatic when I saw Lieke’s post about wanting to do a read-a-long surrounding mental illness awareness.

I think it is great that there are so many books out there that deal with mental illness in a real way. What I mean by this is that they don’t romanticize mental illness but show a different light to what it means to be living with a psychological problem. The fact that ‘Psychological Thriller’ is a genre of movie and book shows just how far we need to progress with mental illness in books, movies, and TV shows. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good psychological thriller (and may be reading one for this readalong), but most of the time the antagonist has a mental health problem and is looked at in the wrong light. Yes, there are people with mental illness that do fit the types of people that are being portrayed, but they are a very small percentage of people living with a mental illness.  There needs to be more novels and movies that show what it is like for the other people living with a mental illness. Thankfully, these types of entertainment are becoming more prominent in society.

Along the lines of entertainment shedding a bad light on mental illness, the news also sheds a poor light. There are often stories where someone did something wrong or hurt someone where they speculate or later discover that the person responsible has a mental illness. Again, it happens, but these types of stories shouldn’t be able to label everyone with a mental illness as a bad person. Most of the time when someone with a mental illness does something wrong it could have been prevented. With proper treatment, both through therapies and potentially medication, people can live with their mental illness. As a society we should be more aware of these issues and not be so quick to label someone as ‘crazy’ when we don’t know what they may be going through.

I’m very excited to be involved with this read-a-long because I truly believe that there needs to be more awareness about mental illness. Again, this subject fascinates me and I am grateful to be a part of this read-a-long.

Thank you for reading.

-Gina  

P.S. 

If you are interested in joining this Read-a-Long please check out THIS VIDEO for all the information. 

You can also join the GOODREADS GROUP and follow the TWITTER PAGE. 

There will be scheduled reading sprints going on throughout each day on the Twitter page to help you achieve any reading goals you have for yourself this week! 

P.P.S 

Below are just a few of my favorite books that involve mental illness. Now I have not read too many, and thanks to this readalong I am finding so many good books I want to check out, but the ones I have read I have loved!! (Note: I'm not putting authors because some of these I don't remember the author off the top of my head, if you'd like to know leave a comment and I'll look it up!) 

Silver Linings Playbook (currently reading)

It's Kind of a Funny Story

Perks of Being a Wallflower

Looking for Alaska

The Burn Journals

Just Listen

Still Alice

You Don't Know Me

A Child Called "IT"  Trilogy 

I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the ones I've read, but these are the ones that have stuck with me. Again, I'm excited to find more books to read!! :D There are also a TON of great movies out there about mental illness, but I'll save those for another time. 

Still Alice | Movie Review *WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOTH BOOK AND MOVIE*

*There will be a spoiler warning within this review. The first part is spoiler free. Enjoy!*

So I finally got to see Still Alice tonight. I was very excited to see the movie, especially since I loved the book so much. However, I was slightly disappointed.

If I had to give the movie a star rating it would be a 3.5 out of 5. That is a pretty significant decline from the perfect 5 out of 5 stars I gave the novel.

Overall I think they did a good job at keeping the overall story and characters correct. It's more than I can say for some movie adaptations. *cough* My Sisters Keeper *cough* That being said, I think they could have done a much better job with the overall plot and story line.

Like any movie adaptation there were plenty of missing pieces, but some in Still Alice I feel like some of the changed and missing things were uncalled for. I can understand certain changes, but there were things they left out and changed that should have been kept, I'll get into specifics in the spoiler section.

While watching it I was glad that I had read the book first. While there isn't anything drastic missing from the movie, I feel like it was very under developed. Had I not already been attached to these characters, I don't believe I would have gotten attached.

Let's talk about the acting. Julianne Moore is brilliant! The way she portrays Alice is spot on and she deserves the all of the award buzz she is getting. Kristen Stewart portrays Alice's youngest child Lydia who has moved to LA and is a struggling actress...it's almost as if they wanted the actress to be Lydia's mirror. Personally I am not a huge fan of Stewart, there are only a handful of films that I have enjoyed her in. In this film she wasn't horrible, but I wouldn't put this in my top films she's been in either. Alec Baldwin would have been a PERFECT fit for John, Alice's husband, had they written the character more true to the book. The other actors and actresses in this novel were insignificant and didn't really stand out. That being said they weren't a disappointment either. Some characters weren't written correctly and it showed. Had I not read the book though I wouldn't have even noticed.

Overall this wasn't a horrible movie and I would recommend it, however, I recommend the book even more. If you plan on seeing this movie it will be wise to read the book, if not for the story then at least to get a better understanding of the characters. I think the movie makers bit off more than they could chew with this novel. It has the potential to be a fantastic novel, it just needed to be developed more.

Now onto the spoiler section of this review.

WARNING: THE REST OF THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

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Hopefully I have spaced this out enough to not ruin anything for anyone who might just happen to glance down. If I have, I apologize. It is a little more difficult to conceal spoilers within a written review than it is in a video review.   

I'd first like to go through some of the changes that were made. Not all of these bothered me but there were a few that I have my issues with. 

First, Alice and John work at Harvard University in the book, in the movie however, they work at Columbia. Now I'm not sure if there were legal reasons for them changing the college or why the change happened but it did. This isn't that big of a deal for me. It was a bit surprising but at least her career was still Cognitive Psychology Professor with focus in Linguistics. 

What did bother me about this was the lack of career Alice had in the movie. In the book we see Alice at work a lot. We see her go to classes, lectures, staff meetings, grad student presentations, work related parties, and even traveling out of state for conferences on multiple occasions. She fights to stay on at the school when her boss finds out about her disease whereas in the movie she just kind of accepts that she's done teaching and we never see her return. This bothered me because her career is a huge part of who she is, making it a huge part in the book. 

I also didn't like how they left out a lot of the psychological aspects. In the book we see many different tests she has to take when she is meeting with her neurologist. In the film we only see one test. We don't see he have to count backwards from 100 by 6, we don't see her having to draw a clock then feeling bad because she made the clock too large, we also don't get to see the conversation play out in depth between the neurologist, Alice, and John. By cutting out these tests we also don't get to see the struggle John is having with accepting Alice's diagnosis and the neurologist suggesting he join a support group. In the movie it seems that John just accepts the diagnosis and although we see a little bit of a struggle, he isn't as much of a jerk as he is in the book.

They also cut out Alice starting her own support group of people in their late 40's early 50's who have EOAD. This was a huge part in the book and I'm really upset they didn't keep it in the movie. It was an outlet for Alice to be able to talk with people who understand exactly how she is feeling and what she is experiencing. The movie also didn't incorporate her grad student, Dan. I understand the decision to cut out the parts with Dan, it was still disappointing to not see her continued work with him throughout the movie.

Those were the main complaints I had with the movie. As of finishing this post it has been about a week since I have seen the movie and everything else isn't as fresh. There were other changes that bugged me, such as: Anna being rude to her mother, Lydia not taking acting classes, John not buying movies for Alice when she can no longer hold onto the plot of a book, the kids making home videos of memories they had with their mother, and other minor details that really had no significant effect on the movie one way or another but were noticeable for someone who had JUST finished reading the book.

All that being said, there were a few changes I enjoyed. I liked the fact that they had Alice use a highlighter while reading her speech, it made that scene more realistic then just her having a good day and being able to concentrate well enough to get through the speech. I also liked that Alice recorded herself for her "Butterfly" folder instead of just writing it out, that scene in the movie was powerful and really well done. I also enjoyed that Alice was constantly Skyping with her daughter Lydia. The book having taken place in the early 2000's Skype wasn't involved in her keeping contact with Lydia so I enjoyed that they were able to include that.

Again, I didn't hate this movie, I just feel they could have done a better job with the script and overall direction.

Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed this post.

Until next time,

G