Sigh... (a.k.a. a book review)

There weren't many books where I could finish in one sitting - usually one would take me about a week, some - like Les Miserables or Pride and Prejudice - never got finished after trying several times. I could recall each of those books where I spent one single night going through them.

The first one was four years ago, when I borrowed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling from a friend who in turn borrowed it from another. That was my first book to the Harry Potter series. It might be blasphemy to some that I never heard of the series before that, I just wanted something to pass time. So I turned on my bed light and got myself comfy and started reading, and before I knew it the sun came up.

The second was The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, which I finished not too long ago. I woke up in the middle of the night and tried to force myself to stay awake for some reason I couldn't remember, so I dug my collection of E-books and settled on HHGG. It took me about four hours to finish it, it was a very enjoyable read.

I just finished my third book-in-a-night a few minutes ago, so I should write this up while the memory is still fresh. The book, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, is one hell of a read.


The story in short is about this super-genius boy Andrew Wiggin, or better known as 'Ender'. A backstory tells us that future Earth has been under attack by insect-like aliens, known as 'buggers' in the story. Earth also has its internal problems like overpopulation and tension among countries. Ender was recruited to the Battle School, a military school on a satellite to train children between ages six to sixteen to fight against the buggers.


Ender's Game is that sort of a fantasy stor where you wished you could be in the shoes of the protagonist, but feel daunted about the events that he has to go through. And Ender went through a lot of things. To be brought away from home into outer space at six years old, to be picked on by other students because he was smarter, to be manipulated into the person he did not want to be, and ultimately to carry the fate of mankind on his shoulders, and after all that, he was only twelve.

Emotion in the story flows very well, though Card might have went slightly too far. After going through a particularly emotional section, I have to remind myself Ender is still a boy, and no boys at that age would act like that. It's probably that thought that depresses me as I progress from chapter to chapter, the emotional burden that Ender - and Ender alone - has to go through. It saddens me to see a young boy being foced out of his childhood and into the battlefields, to hold back his tears and to bite it, to be deceived into committing atrocities. Each page I flip increases that 'bleh' feeling in my heart more, but I read on, hoping that Ender would pull through just fine.

And pulled through he did, though not in the way that I expected. His status made sure that he did not have a normal childhood. First of all, he was a Third, the third child in a family, a position in that time would mean that he was extra, unwanted. His intelligence made him stand out in Battle School, he made some friends, but at the cost of more enemies.

Ender's Game is definitely one of the better books I've read so far, but I wouldn't recommend it to everyone. One might not be comfortable reading about certain situations where these boys might be in, and the overall setting is just too bleak.

If I were to rate this book upon 10, I can't give it a rating. The story is excellent, but by the 'bleh' feeling I get after reading that book, I just feeling like curling up in my bed and dream of something else.