Book Review: The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis

ISBN: 0064471063
Published: 1994 (originally published 1954)
Publisher: HarperCollins
Read from June 30th to July 25th, 2012
Synopsis from Goodreads:

Shasta is a young boy living in Calormene with a cruel man who claims to be his father. One night he overhears his "father" offering to sell him as a slave, so Shasta makes a break and sets out for the North. He meets Bree, a talking horse who becomes his companion. On their way they encounter Aravis, a high-born girl escaping an arranged marriage, and her talking horse. Despite their differences the children and horses learn to work together to reach the freedom they long for. In the meantime, they uncover a Calormene plot to conquer Narnia.

Review:

I had a really hard time getting into this book.  It wasn't until about half-way through that I got really into it and just wanted to keep reading.  I'm not entirely sure why that is.  I think it's because of Aravis.  It was about when she showed up that I began liking the book more.  I also started to like Shasta's character more after Aravis appeared.  I don't know if that's because of his interaction with Aravis or for other reasons though.  I was reading this book in the car while driving to Florida, and my cousin Danielle said she'd tried reading the Chronicles of Narnia before and stopped at some point during this book because she got bored with it, so apparently I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy the beginning much.

I did come to love Shasta and Aravis though.  I know they appear in later books, and I can't wait to see them again.  I really enjoyed Hwin and Bree as well.  Athough Bree sometimes got on my nerves, I enjoyed his character development over the course of the book.

I also really liked Aslan in this book.  *SPOILERS* I knew all along that he was the cat that sat with Shasta at the tombs and the lion that hurt Aravis. I honestly didn't pick up on him being the first two lions they saw until he told Shasta later though.  Aslan in this book reminded me a lot of the footprints in the sand story.  When Aslan was walking up the mountain with Shasta and talking to him I kept thinking about that.

If you begin reading this book and aren't very interested in the beginning, then I recommend sticking with it at least until Aravis and Hwin enter the story.  It may actually be my favorite Chronicles of Narnia book now out of the three I've read, and I really enjoyed Shasta, Aravis, and Aslan's characterizations.

The Wedding and Not Posting Recently

I've been really slacking as far as blogging and filming videos goes.  I keep meaning to post both here and on Youtube, but we've just been too busy for it.  We started home today and will be home some time Tuesday. Then I'll be able to post more often.

We went to Florida for my cousin Brooke Adele's wedding, and it was a really neat wedding.  (It was country-themed.)  And I'm really happy for her, even though it's a bit of a shock that my younger cousin is now married.  I never really got a chance to talk to her new husband, but from what I know and saw he seems like a really nice guy.  I'm sure he'll be a great new addition to the family.

I'm going to keep this short.  I could talk about Florida more, but all the days kind of blend together, and I don't know what to say.  I probably won't post tomorrow, but I'll try to post Tuesday night after we get home.

Savannah, GA

I'm currently in a car in Georgia. We're on our way to Florida and my aunt and uncle's house. It's our third day in the car, and luckily our last.

I'm updating on my phone even though I'm using overage minutes now. This shouldn't use up too many. I've also forgotten how annoying this Blogger app is to type on.

We visited the Juliette Low Birthplace here in Savannah earlier, which was really neat. I was a Girl Scout for years, so it was cool to be in a place with so many Girl Scouts again.

We're leaving Tybee Island now, which was also a cool (although hot) place to visit. My sister Regina, cousin Danielle, and I got some friendship bracelets there.

I'm going to keep this short since this app is annoying, and maybe that'll help keep the data I use up lower. I'd been meaning to post for days, but was just too tired in the hotels. I thought I should take the time to update while in the car. Hopefully I'll update more frequently in Florida.

A Healing Mouth and Leaving for Florida

My mouth is definitely getting a lot better, which I am incredibly thankful for.  It hurt pretty badly when I woke up this morning, but sometime during mass this morning the medicine finally started working.  Then, I went up to communion, and my mouth started hurting again.  It only got worse when I ate lunch after church. Since then though, it's started feeling a lot better.  Right now it just feels a pretty stiff, but not all that sore, and that's saying a lot considering the medicine's pretty much wore off, and I I have to take another pill in about ten minutes.

The swelling is also down a lot.  It's actually not incredibly noticeable that my face is swollen when you look at me anymore.  I'm so glad it went down significantly before church this morning.  Hopefully it'll be even less swollen tomorrow, since that's when we're leaving for Florida.  Speaking of which...

Now I'm going to get into what I basically said on my Tumblr earlier this morning.  I'm leaving for Florida in the morning with my grandma, sister Regina, and cousin Danielle.  I plan on posting here while we're gone, but we'll see how it goes.  I'm sure the hotels we stop at on the way down will have wifi, and I'll always have my iPhone with me.  I hate the Blogger app, but I'll use it if I need to.  We're staying at my aunt and uncle's house in Florida, and I have no idea if they have wifi or not.  We'll see.  Even if they don't, I can still blog from my phone, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal.  The only problem I would really have is I wouldn't be able to upload or edit and Youtube videos while I'm there then.  I don't know how often I'll be posting while there, but I would expect at least a couple of posts.

Wisdom Teeth Pain and Larry Fangirling

I kept hearing that the third day after getting your wisdom teeth out was the worst as far as swelling and pain went.  So far I'm not finding that to be true.  Yesterday (my second day) my face reached it's peak as far as swelling goes, and when I woke up this morning, it was the same.  It's gone down as the day's gone on though, and it's noticeably less swollen (although that's not saying much since it was quite swollen before).  As far as pain goes, I'm also feeling much better than yesterday.  I'm still in some pain (particularly when the medicine begins to wear off), but it's no where near what I was going through yesterday.  The medicine is also still making me very sleepy, and just like the past couple of days, I tend to zone out quite a bit.  Writing posts like this is a bit hard because I either zone out or type something wrong with out realizing.  I'm still able to function somewhat close to normal, but the pain killers do make things a bit harder.  Hopefully I won't have to take them much longer.

I've also been getting these weird hot flashes the past couple of days, and I have no idea why.  It's a little strange and incredibly annoying.

I haven't done much today, although I have limited my time on Tumblr.  (I spent almost every minute of the past two days on Tumblr.)  It's hard to stay away now though because of all of the exciting Larry stuff that's happening!  I know that made no sense to anyone who's not a One Direction fan.  Basically, Larry is the name for the relationship between Harry and Louis, two members of the band.  They're best friends, but lately they haven't been acting like their normal selves.  It's a bit hard to explain without going into too much detail, and most people probably don't care anyway, so I'll just end the explanation there.  But today the two of them have decided to start acting just like they used to, so that means lots of fangirling is going on over on Tumblr.  They're just so adorable!  I'll try not to fangirl too much on here though.  That's basically what my Tumblr is for.

Anyway, I'm off to fangirl over One Direction and Larry some more!