It tells the life story of a man, Ace, who had everything during some years and finally he will die alone and sad. He married three times but was only happy in his second marriage; he had three children: two with his first wife, and a daughter in the third: the only one of his children who loved him. With a fragile health, hospitalized on many occasions and a man who envied his brother Howie, not only for his iron health, but also for his professional and family successes. However, he had had a happy childhood working in his father’s jewelry: always surrounded by pretty girls and doing errands that entertained him. In addition, the summers spent happily on the coast of New Jersey with the rest of his family.
He tells us about his first marriage that ends up, after being accused of adultery. Later he will meet Phoebe, his second wife, with she spends the happiest moments of his life and has his daughter Nancy, who he adores. He worked in an advertising agency and was unfaithful with several women until Phoebe discovers everything and ends up abandoning him and hating him. Third marriage with a Scandinavian model, which turns out to be a disaster and her marriage fails again.
Loneliness is increasing. Also, by that time he has already been ill several times; for arterial, appendix, heart, etc. problems His health is fragile, quite the opposite of his brother Howie, with who he stops communicating by sheer envy.
Finally, he retires to a residence on the coast of New Jersey, recalling his childhood, seeking peace, and also taking advantage to be away from the Islamic terrorism that has just terrorized the entire American nation. There he dedicates himself to his great hobby: painting, which he will also teach to others residents, almost all suffering from health problems. He also starts losing close friends and start thinking about death, loneliness … He tries to get out of this situation having a new relationship with a young girl who ignores him. He doesn’t ask for help from his daughter and even calling his brother Howie, but he is in Tibet…
Ace is completely alone. He has more than 70 years, without illusions, plunged into absolute solitude, until finally, a day in which paradoxically he feels euphoric remembering the family protection he had had as a child, he ends up dying of heart attack.

For me, this book has been very difficult at first because it described many characters and is quite confusing. Vocabulary is not easy and you need a dictionary nearby, however, there are many words that you can understand by context.
The topics of the book are death and loneliness, and I think they are a common themes in books and movies, there is nothing new, nothing surprises you during the reading.

Silvia Vilasaló Cavero

The sense of an ending is a short novel by Julian Barnes, published in 2011 and awarded the Man Booker Prize on October of the same year. This novel is about friendship, love, death, sex, loneliness and above all, memory: the perception of the facts and the volatility of memories. Did it really happen like I remember that or is it how I want to remember it? This thought is reflected in the main character, Tony, who is moved between present and his past.

Tony, a middle-aged man, lives in a calm place after his divorce. Suddenly, he receives a letter of his lawyer: Sarah, the mother of Veronica, his first girlfriend in university, left him five hundred pounds and a manuscript. The manuscript was the Adrian’s diary, a Tony’s friend in university, but it wasn’t in the letter, because Veronica took it and she didn’t want to give it him.
Consequently, this fact moves Tony and he starts to remember his life when he went to the university. The novel explains that Tony and his friends met Adrian in the high school and then they went to the university together. They liked philosophy, literature and girls too. Adrian was the most intelligent and serious, but all of them promised to be friends for ever. However, Adrian died and they got away from each other for forgetting this incident. These memories and the mysterious letter take Tony to achieve this manuscript, that makes him reconsider his life and his place in the world.

In my opinion, I didn’t have a lot of problems to understand the storyline and the book is quite short. However, it isn’t light due to its flashbacks. At the beginning, it’s difficult to know the difference into the present and the past. Despite the fact that I would recommend reading the book because of its great plot.

Jordina Solsona

WONDER

Wonder is a book about the history of August’s life.

August is a 10 years old boy who was born with deformities in his face. He needed to have a lot of surgeries but until now his appearance shocks people when they see him. On the other hand, he is an ordinary boy who likes playing Xbox and eating icecream. It’s a fanatic of Star Wars.

August or Auggie, his nickname is from New York. He lives with his parents, Via, his sister and his dog Daisy. He didn’t asist to school but his mum taught him at home.

The book explains his first year in middle school. To explain this, the book is divided in eight chapters and explains the point of view of the differents characters. It starts whith August, continues whith Via and his schoolmates. Finally ends whith August another time.

The chapters are divided in these characters:

Via (Olivia): Is August sister. He loves his brother but she feels that his parents pay more attention to August than her and that makes Via feel sad.

Summer: She is August’s schoolmate. She was the first gisl to seat whith him at lunch and she deffended him a lot.

Jack: He is August’s schoolmate too. He was his first friend at school. He spend a short time with dubts about being his friend because he would like to be in a “popular group” but at the end he prefers to be August’s friend.

Justin: Is Olivia’s boyfriend.

Miranda: Is Olivia’s friend but this year they had a difficult relationship. She is August’s friend too. She met him where he was a baby.

There are more characters that appear during the book but one of the most important ones is Julian. He is one of August’s schoolmates but he is his worst friend at school. He did a lot of things that made August feel that nobody would ever like to be his friend.

In my opinion this book is great, funny and sad at the same time.

It makes people think about people that have problems and how the oder people behave with them. However, there are some points of views of August that made me laught. It’s a book for children and for adults and I think it helps people without “problems” to think and lern how to treat and respect this kind of people.

I found it addequate for our level so I could understood it and for this reason I think I enjoyed it very much. 

Marta Coma

The sense of an ending is novel by Julian Barnes. This book have two parts. In part one the autor write about a group of friends. Adrian, Alex, Colin and Tony. They thought that the political and social system were corrupted and Adrian’s arrival into the group disloged Alex from his position. After they finished school promising lifelong friendship, they went their separate ways. Adrian won a schoolarship to Cambridge, Tony read history at Bristol, Collin went to Sussex and Alex go into his father’s business.

Tony had a girlfriend that was called Veronica and they liked poetry and rock music. Jack was Veronica’s brother a sporting young man and Tony felt insecure with Veronica’s family.

One day Tony’s mother gave him a letter from Alex which said: Adrian died. He killed herself. That’s the point of the story.

A year on, Colin and Alex suggested a reunion. And they talked and rememebered Adrian, his friend. Tony left home and started to work as a trainee in arts administration. He met Margaret, they married and three years later Suzie was born. Few years later they divorced and Tony had a few affairs but nothing serious. After all, Tony succesfully put Veronica out of his mind.
In the second part of the book we are back to the current time; One fact, two documents that Veronica’s mother leaves to Tony, will make him remember everything that happened at that moment. And it will take us to the surprising end, with the bitterness of real memory, which will bring another person, what happened and what was not aware at the time.

Rubèn Rodríguez.

BOOK’S REVIEW

“The importance of being earnest” is defined in the own book, I don’t know if by the own autor, Oscar Wilde, as a trivial comedy for serious people. Really, it is a funny play of theater that explains the story of two men that are fall in Love with two women and all the things and lies that they did and said to engage with them. The particularity of the story is that the two women want that their promises call Ernest and the autor plays with the sound of the name and the title of the book to do a critic of the importance of being earnest (sounds like “Ernest”) in the work of these men to get his goal to get married. On the other side, the play is also a critic to the wealthy social class and their habits in the final of nineteenth century in Britain.

The play is structured in three acts. The first one, locates the Reader in the situation of the two main characters, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrief and his suitors, Gwendolen Fairfax, the daughter of Algernon’s aunt, called Augusta or Lady Bracknell, and Cecily Cardew, the ward of Jack, who is intented by Algernon.

Moreover, there are some secundary characters who play diferents roles in the play: Miss Prism, the governess that tutores Cecily and a local vicar, Chausuble, who is fall in Love with her; Lane and Merriman, the servents of Algernon and Jack, respectively.

Basically, the first act runs in Algernon’s flat and prepares the Reader to know, in the second act at the Jack’s Manor House in the country, where lives Cecily, the development of the plans that both men had thought up to get married with the two women. In the third act, at the same place, the story ends well, getting engaged all the couples and discovering the truth name of Jack and which was his real family.

I have enjoyed a lot reading this book and I recommend it to everybody.

Jordi Pallàs Ariño

TITLE & AUTOR: Wonder, R.J. Palacio

BRIEF SUMMARY: August or for friends Auggie is an almost normal ten-year-old boy who likes ice cream, riding his bike, is a fan of Star Wars, and loves to play with his console. August lives with his family: his father, his mother, his sister Olivia (Via) and his dog Daisy on the Uper West Side of New York. Our protagonist was born with a hereditary disease of unpronounceable name and as a consequence his face is deformed, that is why from that moment August has to go many times to the doctor and undergo many operations, in order to have a normal life.

Despite the numerous surgeries, August’s face remains deformed and people continue to look at it in the same way; horrified and scared. After all these years, August is already used to being the topic of conversation but also to the glances and gossip of the people. This situation for August is a routine and tries to make these comments affect him as little as possible.

Due to his deformity he can’t attend school so his mother is in charge  of his education, but there comes a time when his mother doesn’t have the necessary knowledge to help him with his studies and believes that it is best for him to go to school. This idea at first doesn’t excite him, like his father, but in the end he agrees to see the director of the school, Mr. Traseronian, who will introduce him to several children who will show him the facilities. But one of them isn’t as kind to him as he should be and in the successive days of the course he will make August’s life impossible. So much of the story revolves around the comings and goings of August at school. If he makes friends,  how the children treat him, how the parents react to the fact that he is there.

The everyday life of August at school is going to be complicated; we all know how bad children of that age can become. And August for being like he is will be the center of attention. Little by little, August is making his space at school, making friends, and feeling as he has always wanted to feel, like a normal child. But to get there, he has to go through very difficult situations for him. Thanks to the school August will learn a lesson that is not taught in the classes; that is to accept himself as he is, smile the grey days and know that in the end you will always find a helping hand.

OPINION: The book shows a story of overcoming and tolerance. First I didn’t like the book but as I was reading I liked it more because it is a book that makes you reflect on things you never thought before; you put yourself in the harsh situation of the father, mother, sister and friends, but especially August. I was also impressed because the writer was inspired by a girl who has a deformation and imagined her story. This book, for me transmits that we are as we can be  in some way, especially if you have people around you who value you as you are, that your physical appearance is not important, it does not matter what race you are. People who love you only value the most important things, which are your feelings and emotions.

WOULD YOU RECOMMEND IT?:
I would recommend this book to people aged between 15-17 years old and I believe that  everyone could read it without age differences because it is a real story.

A. CASTELLS