Ms. Pang Siu Kwan 1  2 3

Sometimes what happens in one’s childhood may completely change a man’s personality. Mr Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights is a good example.

Wuthering Heights is a story about the history of the house and the people. In 1801, Mr Lockwood moved to the Thrushcross Grange which was near the Heights. When he moved there, he firstly met his landlord, Mr Heathcliff in the Heights and there, he learned the story of his landlord from the housekeeper, Mrs Dean.

The story of Mr Heathcliff is main plot of the book. Mr Heathcliff was a beggar’s child whom Mr Earnshaw, the former owner of the Heights, brought there. Then he fell in love with the owner’s daughter, Catherine Earnshaw. But later Catherine fell in love with Edgar Linton, the son of the owner Thrushcross Grange and soon got married with him. Do you want to know what happened after that? Read the book and see whether you can figure out the relationship between the different characters. Have a nice read!

A look at the title may make you think that it is a book about some kind of religion. Yes, it may be as it tells you how different the heaven may look like, but if you read it more closely, you will find yourself quite wrong and that is not what the author wants to get to you either. In fact, it is a book which can help you to think about the meaning of your lives here on earth. It is especially suitable for senior form students as they may encounter more challenges in life soon. 

This book is about Eddie, a grizzled war veteran, whose life has become very routine and dull and full of regrets and loneliness. On his 83rd birthday, he dies in a tragic but maybe heroic life-saving accident. He tries to save a little girl from a falling cart in the seaside amusement park where he works. He awakens in the afterlife where he meets five people he may have never imagined seeing again in the heaven. Each of these five encounters goes back to exactly what happens and lets Eddie see what actually has gone wrong. The conversations between Eddie and the five people who are said to have changed his path in one way or the other are most thought-provoking and sentimental.

I was deeply touched after reading this book and it really got me thinking about the people and the things around me more seriously. Sometimes, we may be stuck in a situation which we think it is the result of us being unfairly treated. We think we do poorly because of others or we may meet some unlucky events in our life which we consider causing us failure. Sometimes we feel guilty for not doing something. The story indeed shows me the way I look at things may affect totally what will happen, just like Eddie in the story. You may say it is just a story, but I think it is so true to life. In life, it is often we who put ourselves into misery and even failure. We are the ones who are constructing the meaning of our present lives. It is our negative perception of things which actually goes wrong.

Therefore, we should not wait until we meet those five people in our afterlife to realize this point and miss out a lot in life and live an embittered, regretful life like Eddie. So, maybe you should stop complaining and blaming others and spend the time reading the awesome book and see what inspiration you may get from it.

   What would you do if you saw a dead dog lying in your neighbour’s garden with a fork stuck in his tummy one night? Would you investigate to find out the murderer as the 15-year-old autistic boy Christopher John Francis Boone does in this gripping story?  

  This book is about an autistic boy, Christopher and his adventurous search for the murderer who has killed his neighbour’s dog, which unveils more than he may have wanted to know. Although Chris’s father forbids him to look into the death of Wellington, he still continues doing it and each time he has some very special reasoning behind. Indeed, Chris sees things very differently from us and it is this part which makes the story most fascinating because the author describes a world of how an autistic child perceives things round him – so distinctively from the way we do that it certainly baffles, at least, me. For example, Chris’s life is full of “principles” which cannot be trespassed. And Chris likes red as he thinks it is the lucky colour while he hates another two colours for they are considered to bring about bad luck.

   After reading this book, I understand a little more why autistic people may act as they do because they cannot figure out what “affection” is. People therefore need to be extremely patient with them. This can especially reflect in the middle last part when Chris’s neighbour Mrs Alexander tells him something, which brings about drastic change to Chris’s stable life and his relationship with other people, his father in particular. However, to us, his reaction may be a little incomprehensible and not forgiving enough. The ending has moved me most because of the effort Chris’s father puts in making him know how much he loves Chris.

  Therefore, it is not a detective story though the beginning may make you think it is. Read it yourself and you will see what I mean.

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